An Indo-Canadian trucker has pleaded guilty to his role in an August 2023 crash that killed a Canadian Winter Olympian.
An image of drugs seized from a truck driven by Satnam Singh, Canadian authorities released on Tuesday. (Credit: CBSA)Sukhvinder Sidhu, 31, pleaded guilty to the accident in Melanthon, Ontario, that killed Olympic figure skater Alexandra Paul and injured several others, according to a report of the court proceedings by outlet CTV News.
Sidhu was driving a transport truck at the time and while it was passing through a construction zone, it rammed into several parked vehicles, including the car of Paul, who represented Canada in the ice dance competition at the 2014 Sochi Olympics, and his younger son was injured.
Three others “suffered serious and life-altering injuries,” the report said. He is due to face a sentencing hearing in mid-May.
Sidhu is one of the high-profile cases involving Indian-origin truckers in Canada in recent years. One of the deadliest accidents in Canadian history was the death of 16 people, most of them members of the junior ice hockey Humboldt Broncos team, when the coach they were riding in was hit by a truck driven by Jaskirat Singh Sidhu. That tragedy occurred in April 2018 in the province of Saskatchewan. Sidhu spent three years in jail and is currently challenging the deportation order.
Indian-origin truckers have also been implicated in multiple incidents of attempted drug smuggling across the Canada-US border.
In a statement on Tuesday, the Canada Border Services Agency or CBSA announced the arrest of Satnam Singh on charges of “attempting to smuggle a significant amount of methamphetamine through the Abbotsford-Huntingdon port of entry in British Columbia”.
On November 2, 2025, CBSA border services officers checked a commercial vehicle returning to Canada from the United States and, with the assistance of its detector dog team, found 12 boxes containing 314 kg of methamphetamine hidden in the truck and trailer. “This interception represents the largest narcotics seizure to date at the Abbotsford-Huntingdon Port of Entry,” the release noted.
The number of cases involving Indo-Canadian truckers has increased in recent years, causing concern within the industry. In August 2025, the Canadian Trucking Alliance, or CTA, said it “remains with the government that the industry’s issues with immigration are very clear and must be addressed.”
At the time, the CTA said, “Unfortunately, the Canadian trucking industry has seen an influx of trucking fleets and ownership groups that have little regard for safety and other ethical financial and labor business practices.”
