EDMONTON—The scale of the devastation and number of lives lost in the Humboldt Broncos crash was unprecedented, which means the driver’s sentence — expected to be handed down Friday — will be, too.Both the Crown and the defence acknowledged Justice Inez Cardinal has a difficult task in meting out a just sentence because there has been no case like this in Canada.Family and friends of the 16 people killed and 13 injured in the Humboldt bus crash will return to Melfort, Sask., on Friday to learn the fate of the semi driver who collided with the Broncos hockey team bus in April, changing their lives forever.Driver Jaskirat Singh Sidhu has already pleaded guilty to 16 counts of dangerous driving causing death and 13 counts of dangerous driving causing bodily harm.Each charge of dangerous driving causing bodily harm comes with a maximum sentence of 14 years in custody, while every count of dangerous driving causing death carries a maximum sentence of life in prison.Crown prosecutors, however, recommended Sidhu serve 10 years behind bars.Read more:A look at the judge who will sentence truck driver in Broncos crashFamily, friends of Humboldt Broncos victims recall ‘the panic, the agony, the horror’Unprecedented outpouring of grief at sentencing for truck driver in Humboldt Broncos bus crashUnder the law, Sidhu could technically face a prison sentence anywhere between months or hundreds of years.But while it would be technically possible for Cardinal to decide on a sentence for one of the dangerous driving charges and multiply it by the number of counts, the length of that sentence would likely run afoul of sentencing principles of proportionality.In plain language, simply multiplying one sentence by the number of people killed and injured would result in a sentence potentially hundreds of years long that would be grossly out of step with the circumstances of the actual crime.“We’re not as simplistic as an eye for an eye,& ...
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