Abbotsford News, March 11, 2015

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MARCH 11, 2015

Mouat Hawks place second in senior girls AAA provincial championship A21

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Inspections still finding unsafe farmworkers’ vehicles

RECALLING

TRAGEDY

REDUCING

$2.5 MILLION FOR HOSPICE

Tyler OLSEN

CULTURAL DIVERSITY

RISK

A5 Provincial government provides funding for completion of Holmberg House

Abbotsford News

T

he rain was sluicing down the morning of March 7, 2007, as the nine-year-old Dodge Ram 350 van and its 17 occupants – all farmworkers save the driver – bore down Highway 1 en route to a farm in Chilliwack. It was just after 6 a.m. and the highway would have gleamed with the red reflections of commuters’ taillights. None of the passengers packed shoulder-to-shoulder inside the van would have had any warning of what was about to occur as the van crossed Sumas Way on the overpass. The tires strayed right, towards the guardrail. The driver turned the wheel, the van veered left, and steel, concrete and glass exploded. Years later, that crash is on the mind of Jagjeet Sidhu, as he sits in his Abbotsford house beneath photos of his two daughters and son, now aged 15, 11 and nine. Sidhu’s 31-year-old wife, Sarbjit Kaur Sidhu, was one of three women who died that rainy morning. Also killed were Amarjit Bal, 52, and Sukhvinder Kaur Punia, 46. Fourteen others were injured. The crash caused the provincial government to clamp down on the transportation of farmworkers by labour contractors. Continued on A3

A7 Organizations honoured during annual awards presentation

BOYS B-BALL TOURNAMENT A22 Four Abby high schools playing in the senior boys basketball championships

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Sports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .A20

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Classifieds. . . . . . . . . . . . . .A23

85¢ (Top) Sukhvinder Kaur Punia, Sarbjit Kaur Sidhu, and Amarjit Kaur Bal were killed in a horrific highway crash in 2007. Raj Bal (above, right), the daughter-in-law of Amarjit Bal, helps eight-year-old Mehak Bal place candles next JOHN MORROW Abbotsford News to a model of a planned memorial for the women Saturday during a vigil.

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