Sipu Jha
Two Indian-origin men, Gurvinder Singh, 69, and Gurpreet Singh, 37, have been convicted for running an elaborate scheme involving fraudulent truck driving training in Ontario for years, offering sub-standard training for newcomers from South Asia. An Ontario judge has sentenced them to house arrest, the National Post reported. The verdict comes as Indian-origin truck drivers are under fire in North America for endangering road safety as it has been found that they often lack adequate training and understanding. Gurvinder Singh and Gurpreet Singh started offering people driving lessons in 2019, two years after Ontario made a mandatory entry-level training for residents of Ontario seeking to obtain a Class A license, required for commercial trucks. This training includes a minimum of instructional hours offered by qualified instructors teaching specific standardized skills and without proof of it, drivers can’t schedule a road test. The Singhs took money from candidates and then circumvented the certification process by paying. They used to charge their students between $4,000 and $5,000 for the training and this is slightly less than what is charged for the actual training by approved schools. They mostly got South Asian students, new immigrants and the language spoken during the training, which was not up to the required standard, was Punjabi. But the students were satisfied with the training and the services they received from the Singhs. According to court documents, Gurvinder Singh works as a commercial truck driver. He immigrated to Canada from India in 2002 and is a Canadian citizen. Gurpreet, on the other hand, came to Canada as a student. He owns and operates a delivery company and is a Canadian citizen. The court noted that because of their scam, the truck drivers were ill-prepared, which could lead to dangerous situations.The offenders argued that this is not a large-scale fraud and there was no evidence that anyone was hurt due to the scam.
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