Man sentenced to 6.5 years in prison for Parkside Drive crash that killed couple

Muriel Draaisma · CBC News

· Posted: Mar 28, 2025 6:24 PM EDT | Last Updated: 5 minutes ago

A Burlington, Ont., antheral has been sentenced to six and fractional years successful situation for causing a clang connected a roadworthy adjacent High Park successful 2021 that killed 2 people.

Artur Kotula was hunched implicit erstwhile the condemnation was work successful an Ontario Superior Court of Justice courtroom connected Friday. In November, helium was recovered blameworthy of 2 counts of unsafe driving causing decease and 2 counts of unsafe driving causing bodily harm.

Valdemar Avila, 71, and Fatima Avila, 69, were rear-ended Oct. 12, 2021 portion they were stopped by unreserved hr postulation astatine the intersection of Parkside Drive and Spring Road. Valdemar died astatine the scene, portion Fatima died aboriginal successful hospital.

Superior Court Justice Suhail Akhtar called the deadly clang "a transgression of stupidity."

At the clip of the crash, Kotula was travelling astatine implicit 100 km/h connected the thoroughfare with a 50 km/h limit, according to an mishap reconstructionist study submitted to court.

Footage presented astatine the proceedings showed that Kotula slammed into the backmost of the couple's car, causing a concatenation absorption that prompted 3 different cars to collide. Two different radical successful 1 of the cars suffered insignificant injuries.

Kotula has been successful custody since the crash, which means helium has 533 much days near to serve. He is besides not allowed to thrust for astatine slightest 15 years.

Kotula immigrated to Canada from Poland successful 2008 and the justice said it's unclear if helium mightiness beryllium deported due to the fact that of his conviction.

Ashley Avila, the couple's daughter, said successful an affectional unfortunate interaction connection during the proceedings that her parents were adoring grandparents. They had immigrated to Canada from Portugal successful the aboriginal 1970s with hopes of gathering a amended life. 

"Their emotion communicative blossomed crossed oceans, culminating successful a matrimony that I profoundly admired," Avila said.

Parkside Drive has agelong been criticized by residents arsenic unsafe owed to dense postulation and motorists travelling excessively fast. After the Avilas were killed, the metropolis launched an ongoing survey of the street, reduced the street's velocity bounds from 50km/h to 40 and added velocity cameras. 

In November 2024, Toronto metropolis assembly voted to endorse a program to adhd motorcycle lanes to Parkside Drive arsenic portion of a larger task to marque the thoroughfare safer.