A couple of things. First, the American and Canadian judicial systems are quite different. So to equate the the story of the golfer and the truck driver is like comparing apples to oranges.

Second, the reason for the low fine amount is the Crown proceeded by way of a summary conviction charge, under a Provincial Statute - the Traffic Safety Act as opposed to an indictable conviction charge by way of the Criminal Code. The judge basically gave the driver the maximum penalty allowable under the TSA except for not suspending his driver's licence. According to today's paper, the driver is still taking psychological counselling and has never gone back to driving a "big rig". He instead is employed driving a gravel truck.

It's really not the judge who you should be upset with here but the Crown Prosecutors' Office for deciding to prosecute on the lesser charge. This seems to be a common theme here with at least two other similar cases heard recently. One where a truck driver rear-ended a car with four nuns, killing three of them and another where a woman mows down two pedestrians in a marked crosswalk, killing both. In each case, the accused's were found guilty under the lesser charges under the Traffic Safety Act.

Just some background on our judicial system here; however, it doesn't lessen the level of pain caused to the victim's families. As someone said earlier, yes we do have our share of problems with the courts here as do the Americans.