What Does a Rampage Cost in Canada?
On the night of September 16, 2023, Harinder Singh Sihota drove through Surrey and Delta, British Columbia in a state of impairment that left 13 crashes and 9 injured victims in his wake. He drove directly into oncoming traffic. He drove directly toward pedestrians on multiple occasions. He hit three vehicles, left the scene, and kept going.
Surrey Provincial Court Judge Reginald Harris had a word for it.
Rampage.
That word didn’t come from an advocate or a victim’s family or a headline writer looking for impact. It came from the judge’s own sentencing reasons. It is the court’s characterization of what Harinder Singh Sihota did that night.
So what does a rampage cost in Canada?
Four years.
That’s what Judge Harris imposed. With credit for time already served, Sihota had 874 days remaining as of his sentencing on July 2, 2026. He was also ordered to pay restitution of $26,845.98 to victim Stacey Johnson and $12,543.07 to victim Krystle Zimmer by December 31, 2030. Judge Harris noted in his reasons that Krystle Zimmer’s family still has a long road ahead regarding her medical issues — and that they still don’t know where that road leads.
Twelve thousand dollars and an uncertain medical future. That’s what Krystle Zimmer got.
Eight hundred and seventy-four days. That’s what the system gave her in return.
The defence had asked for 18 months to two years. The Crown fought for four. The gap between those two numbers — 18 months on one side, four years on the other, for the same rampage — tells you almost everything you need to know about where Canada stands on impaired driving accountability in the summer of 2026.
A Month of Progress
To be fair, July 2026 brought real movement on impaired driving in Canada.
On July 1, Ontario tightened its impaired driving rules again. Anyone criminally convicted of impaired driving causing death now faces a lifetime provincial licence suspension, reducible only after 25 years under specific criteria. After completing a mandatory ignition interlock period, drivers face an additional six-month zero-tolerance condition before full reinstatement. The look-back period for repeat offenders doubled from five years to ten.
These are meaningful changes. They deserve acknowledgment.
On July 15, the federal Bail and Sentencing Reform Act — Bill C-14 — came into force. Over 80 targeted changes to the Criminal Code. Stricter bail conditions. Tougher sentencing for repeat violent offenders. Mandatory consecutive sentences for violent auto theft paired with break and enter. Restored driving prohibitions for manslaughter and criminal negligence causing death. Backed by every province and territory, every premier, and law enforcement agencies across the country.
Also meaningful. Also deserving of acknowledgment.
Parliament moved. Ontario moved. Credit where it’s due.
But the Surrey case was sentenced in this same month. In this same legal environment. And the Crown’s ceiling — the best outcome prosecutors could argue for — was four years for a rampage.
The Gap Nobody Fixed
Bill C-14 mandates consecutive sentences when someone commits violent auto theft and break and enter together. Parliament looked at that combination of offences and said — these sentences run one after the other, not at the same time. The number of crimes matters.
That logic is sound.
But a driver who kills multiple people in a single impaired driving incident — the Brady Robertson case, four people dead including three children — does not face mandatory consecutive sentences under Bill C-14. Judges must consider consecutive sentences for repeat violent offenders in certain cases. Consider. Not require.
The gap is specific. It is not an oversight anyone can credibly defend in public. It is simply unfinished business.
If the number of cars stolen determines whether sentences stack, the number of people killed should determine the same. That is not a radical proposition. It is arithmetic.
The Other Gap
There is a second gap worth noting, and it has nothing to do with courts or judges.
Earlier this year, The Old Guardian asked several major Canadian rental car companies a straightforward yes or no question: does your company have a written policy preventing someone convicted of impaired driving causing death from renting one of your vehicles?
One company responded publicly. Their answer revealed a policy built around a 48-month lookback window for DUI convictions. After 48 months, a conviction — including a conviction for killing someone while impaired — no longer affects rental eligibility under their stated policy. There was no distinction between a standard impaired driving conviction and one involving a fatality.
No federal legislation currently requires rental companies to check anything beyond a valid licence. A convicted killer whose provincial licence has been suspended for 25 years can hand a credit card to a rental counter and drive away in someone else’s vehicle. Legally. Today.
Ontario closed the licence gap. Bill C-14 moved the federal needle. Nobody has touched this one.
What the Numbers Say
Canadian sentencing for impaired driving causing death ranges from approximately three years to seventeen years depending on jurisdiction, judge, and circumstances. The seventeen-year sentence — handed to Brady Robertson, who had 15 prior driving convictions and killed four people including three children — remains one of the harshest in Canadian history. The three-year sentence — handed to Jonathan Patten, who had multiple drugs in his system and killed 25-year-old Nicholas Fong — was justified partly on the basis of remorse and rehabilitation potential.
Same charge. Same outcome. A fourteen-year gap.
In Surrey, a man caused 13 crashes and injured 9 people. The Crown’s best argument was four years.
These numbers are not a sentencing system. They are a lottery.
What Comes Next
Canada is not standing still on impaired driving. The Ontario PC government’s Safer Ontario platform, Bill C-14, Andrew’s Law — named after Andrew Cristillo, a 35-year-old father of three killed in a head-on crash in Whitchurch-Stouffville in August 2025 — these are not nothing. They are evidence that political will exists when public pressure is sufficient.
The question is whether that will extends to the specific gaps that remain.
Mandatory consecutive sentences when a single impaired driving incident kills more than one person. Impairment designated explicitly as a mandatory aggravating factor on the criminal record at sentencing. Federal legislation requiring rental companies to check a national conviction registry before handing over keys — with real corporate liability if they don’t.
None of those things exist today.
A federal petition addressing exactly these gaps is coming. When it does, the ask will be narrow, specific, and deliberately built on the framework Parliament just established with Bill C-14. Not a new law. A completion of the one that just passed.
In the meantime — what does a rampage cost in Canada?
We have an answer. The question is whether we’re comfortable with it.
The Old Guardian covers impaired driving accountability, criminal justice reform, and public safety in Canada. If this piece raised questions you think deserve answers, share it.