When Markita Kaulius's daughter Kassandra was killed by an alleged drunk driver over six months ago she watched in disbelief as the suspect was allowed back behind the wheel just a day later.
The Surrey mother vowed at her daughter's funeral to fight for tougher driving suspensions and mandatory minimum sentences.
What she didn't know then was that many other B.C. families who had lost loved ones to impaired drivers would fight with her.
But that's exactly what Families for Justice is doing. The group, representing 24 victims of drunk drivers, are on a mission to toughen laws to save other families.
They met last weekend in Surrey, clutching pictures of their loved ones, to share and strategize.
"We can't do anything to bring back our children," Kaulius said, "but we can try to help save another family this loss."
Around her, the room was filled with loss. Among group members, four parents have lost their only children, another lost a brother and sister to different drivers and yet another lost her sister, young niece, and then her daughter.
The family of four-year-old Alexa Middelaer who was killed in May 2008 in Delta by a convicted impaired driver, and Charlene Reaveley, a Port Coquitlam mom of four killed in February 2011 by a man charged with impaired driving, are also members.
"We've lost everything. We've lost the reason to live," said Pitt Meadows mom Debbie Dyer, who lost her only daughter Beckie in a crash with an aggressive driver that also took the life of Beckie's boyfriend John DeOliveira in Oct. 2010.
"One voice doesn't get you anywhere. Maybe we can change things with many voices."
"The laws must be changed," said Sherry Dion who lost her son Jordan when a car he was riding in with an alleged drunk driver lost control and flipped, crushing him. "That's why we're here. Drinking and driving should be a felony."
"We're trying to honour the victims," said South Surrey's Philip Brascia, who lost his only daughter to a drunk driver in 2009.
"We must stop losing our children," stressed Yvonne Van DePerre, of North Delta, whose son Drew Helgason was killed this past June while riding in a car with an impaired driver.
The Premier announced Wednesday that impaired driving deaths in B.C. are down 40 per cent this year over last, a decline she attributed to tougher roadside laws that went into effect last fall.
Now, a driver on B.C. roads with a .05 mg blood alcohol concentration can have their license suspended and vehicle impounded for 24 hours and receive an up to three-month pre-conviction driving prohibition. Impaired drivers can have their license suspended for up to 12 months for a first offence, 36 months for a second, and more than 10 years for a third. Their vehicle can be impounded for up to 60 days.
Under the new laws, over the past year, police in the province served 23,366 immediate driving prohibitions, 15,000 of them to drivers with blood alcohol levels over .08, and impounded 20,000 cars.
Between Sept. 30 2010 and 2011, there were 86 alcohol-related deaths in B.C., down from a five-year average of 113.
"For the first time in decade, we've seen a real drop in the deaths associated with impaired driving," Minister of Public Safety and Solicitor General Shirley Bond said following the announcement.
But Families for Justice says while those roadside changes are helping, there is much more to be done on toughening penalties for drunk drivers who are charged with crimes in the courts.
And drivers are still dying. More than a thousand Canadians die in alcohol-related crashes each year and 80,000 Canadians are charged with impaired driving each year.
A recent study showed that 1.84 million Canadians reported they had driven when they felt they were over the legal limit. A third of all drivers killed in accidents have been drinking: in 2006, 37 per cent of fatally-injured drivers had tested positive for blood alcohol, according to the country's Traffic Injury Research Foundation.
Under the Criminal Code, the mandatory minimum penalties in addition to license suspension for impaired driving for a first-time offender are a $600 minimum fine, for a second offence, 14 days in jail, and a third offence minimum 90 days in jail. If convicted of impaired driving causing bodily harm, a driver faces an up to 10 year driving prohibition and up to a decade in jail while a driver convicted of impaired driving causing death faces a possible lifetime ban on driving and life imprisonment.
Families for Justice wants even harsher penalties.
The group has drawn up a petition to get the federal government to change charges of impaired driving causing death to vehicular homicide. They say no one convicted of impaired driving causing death ever gets life imprisonment, so they want mandatory minimum sentences of five years, with another two if the driver flees the scene, plus an end to conditional sentences and one year driving bans upon arrest. They want automatic 6 month driving suspensions for drivers arrested for impaired driving, and minimum sentences of two years for these drivers with another year for fleeing.
Mothers Against Drunk Driving Metro Vancouver chapter president Bob Rorison said he supported the changes in principle, but noted Ottawa lawmakers moved at "a snail's pace."
"We need to work on the changes to the Criminal Code to make sure justice is served," said the Surrey resident who was hit and injured by an impaired driver in 1994. "Why do the victims suffer more than then criminals?"
"We're taking baby steps, but it's never enough sentence in a quick enough time for someone who's had the horrible loss of a child or loved one to a drunk driver."
Kaulius said the group hopes "the public and lawmakers will back us in our efforts to bring about changes in the laws."
Surrey's Vicki Macri, who lost her brother when he was hit by an alleged impaired driver five days before his wedding said roadside suspensions need to stay in force longer until after court dates.
"My brother hadn't even had an autopsy and [the accused] was driving again," she said.
Kassandra's cousin, Tamara Newbery, a licensing clerk at ICBC who processes the licences of impaired drivers said lax regulations are frustrating.
"The rules are not nearly as strong as they should be," she said, adding she wears a blue ribbon in her cousin's memory hoping a driver will ask her what it's for. "It's a joke."
In order to advocate for change, the Kaulius family met with former Attorney General Barry Penner, and Families for Justice are participating in an upcoming MADD news conference at Surrey City Hall later this month and in a roadside Counterattack event in Langley in early December.
Families for Justice is open to other families who have lost their children or loved ones to drunk or aggressive drivers who are looking for support and action. Email familiesforjustice@shaw.ca.
FAMILY PROFILES
Kassandra Kaulius
Markita Kaulius' 22-year-old daughter was killed by an alleged drunk driver while driving home from a softball game last May.
Kassandra Kaulius was a softball pitcher and a coach, was studying to be a teacher and planning her future with her long-term boyfriend. Her death sent her family reeling.
"To lose a child is like nothing you have ever experienced," her mother said. "Going through this is a slow torture."
And it's not just parents who lose, said Kassandra's sister Miranda, who is about to to have a child that will never know their aunt. "Me and my sister were best friends. I lost a sister and a best friend."
"It's our loss, but its also society's loss," her father, Victor said.
An alleged drunk driver smashed into her car while Kaulius was waiting to make a left turn, just blocks from her Surrey home.
She died at the scene. A 34-year-old woman who had been driving home from a Canucks celebration in a company van was later arrested in connection with the accident.
The Kaulius family are still waiting for charges to be laid. Police have told them it could take up to a year with another possible three year wait to get to trial. The lengthy delay is hard on the family.
"It's such a blow to our family," said Kassandra's aunt, Sherri Todd. "We are in grief and pain and anguish."
Tia Brascia
South Surrey's Philip Brascia lost his 31-year-old daughter three years ago to an alleged drunk driver. His voice still resonates with anger and pain.
"I got a phone call saying my daughter was dead. My wife collapsed, she didn't believe it. My daughter was crushed and so was the other girl," said the former Delta Port foreman, who took early retirement after his daughter's death blew a hole in his life.
"I don't sleep at night. It doesn't really hit home until it happens to you," he said of awareness of the fatal consequences of drunk driving.
His wife, Susan, is still struggling to cope.
Tia Brascia was studying at Douglas College and was getting ready to move in with her boyfriend when an alleged drunk driver with a prior record allegedly ran a red light in his truck at about 3 a.m. and T-boned her car at the intersection of 100th Avenue and 128th Street in Surrey.
Tia and her friend Adrienne O'Farrell were both killed.
"That was our only child. That was our only daughter," said her father, still mourning the fact that he wasn't by her side to comfort his child when she died.
"How do you go on? People say it gets better. It doesn't get better. We don't even have Christmas anymore. I loved Christmas. But it's just too hard."
The Brascias are still waiting for justice in the courts. They are waiting on a trial set for 2012.
Rebecca Dyer and John De Oliveira
When these two Pitt Meadows sweethearts were killed by an alleged aggressive driver, it smashed apart two families.
Beckie, 19, was studying to be a nurse, volunteering at a local hospital and participating in Miss Teen Canada contests to raise money for Variety. John, 21, had earned his journeyman's ticket and was working alongside his father.
The couple were coming home from a Justin Bieber concert in October, 2010 when an alleged aggressive driver passed another car on the right, blew through a red light, hit the median, went airborne and hit the young couple's car taking their roof clear off and killing them both.
The young female driver was treated for minor injuries. She was charged with two counts of dangerous driving causing death.
"We've lost everything. We've lost the reason to live," said Beckie's mother Debbie Dyer. "We're going to pay for the rest of our lives."
The two mothers comforted each other as they spoke, each wearing memorial T-shirts printed with pictures of their children.
"They were five minutes from home," Dyer said through tears. "Becky was my one and only. I will never have grandchildren. I will never see her get married."
John's mother, Audrey De Oliveira, said the tragedy haunted her and affected her parenting of her other child.
"I have a daughter and I am constantly worried about her," said the grief-stricken mother.
The driver pleaded not guilty and ICBC paid to replace her vehicle. Their case will go to court in October, 2012, on John's birthday.
Drew Helgason
The tight bond between Yvonne Van DePerre and her son Drew was broken in June.
The 19-year-old football player who had dreams of becoming a police officer was killed when the car he was riding in smashed into a parked car and then a hydro pole on Rockwell Road near Harrison Lake on June 4, 2011. Police reported that the driver was allegedly impaired and speeding.
"You lose your purpose in life. You lose your identity, especially when its your only child," said Van DePerre.
"Time doesn't heal, it worsens," said the North Delta resident.
Her son's case has yet to go to court, but already, Van DePerre is racked with worry over what that could entail: denials, delays and appeals that will make her relive the tragedy for years.
"My anxiety is the prospect of the driver appealing and being subject to years in court. I fear for that, to have to endure them denying it," she said.
Robert Staines
Twenty-one-year-old Robert Staines was walking home from a friend's house on February 26, 2006, having left his car behind so as not to drink and drive himself, when he was hit. The driver who hit him on Brunette Avenue kept going, carrying him several blocks before parking his car and fleeing the scene, leaving Robert to die.
The man's mother later had the car towed, repaired and repainted to hide traces of the fatal crash.
Coquitlam's Jocelyn Staines says she would do anything for her son, but not what that mother did.
Police couldn't prove who was behind the wheel and three charges against the driver for failing to remain at the scene of an accident, obstruction of justice and intent to mislead police were stayed.
But his mother was charged with obstruction of justice and intent to mislead and in 2010 was sentenced to 15 months of house arrest.
Staines has two younger sons to lean on, but says Rob's death has cast a pall over her life.
"I feel sometimes that your dead child is in your mind more than your living children."
Jordan Dion
When Sherry Dion was told that her 27-year-old son had been killed in a car crash, it was a nightmarish déjà vu.
"I was in shock, I didn't believe it was true," said the New Westminster mother, recalling her reaction to her son's death in 2008.
Ten years before, her younger son, 15-year-old Jared, was murdered after a fight at a house party led to a man following Jared in a car and firing on them with a sawed-off shotgun. Bleeding from a gunshot wound Jared died in his big brothers arms.
Jordan was killed on April 23, 2008. He was staying at a friends house and was asleep when another, allegedly drunk friend came in and woke him to go get something to eat. Than man was behind the wheel when the driver lost control on United Boulevard hit a barrier and went airborne, flipping several times before landing on the roof, crushing Jordan.
"We were so close, we were a close family," Dion said through tears. "Now they are buried together."
"The driver was a friend who had been to my house since he was 13 years old. But he pleaded not guilty. I never got one phone call. No one from that family ever said that they were sorry."
Now, she said, her family, including her remaining son and daughter are left to grieve while her son's friend is planning his wedding, "and I get to go to the cemetery."
Bryan McCron
Vicki Macri had been planning to host her brother Bryan's wedding. But the 49-year-old single father never made it down the aisle.
"My brother was killed on a Monday and he was to be married on the Saturday," his sister said. "Instead of having his wedding in my backyard, I was having his funeral."
Her brother lived in Surrey with his teenage son Connor, working two jobs to support them. On the night of July 19, 2010, McCron went out on his newspaper delivery route and his son was up and tagged along, riding in the back seat. Their car was hit by a truck while they were parked on Colebrook Road in Surrey. They had stopped to deliver papers. As Connor got out to try and help his father who lay dying and while he was calling 911, the driver punched him to get him to stop the call. The details were caught on the 911 call recording. McCron died of his injuries at Royal Columbian Hospital, where his sister works.
After months of waiting, the driver was charged with impaired and dangerous driving causing death, as well as assault and refusing to provide a breathalyzer sample. He has yet to enter a plea.
"Its really hard on families to just keep waiting. It's like we've been forgotten about," Macri said. "Now that we are in the system, if this goes to trial it will be 2013. It's just a nightmare for the whole family. These kinds of cases soul be expedited so the families don't have to suffer."
Sherri Hoeflicker
Helen Hoeflicker's eldest daughter was killed more than 15 years ago, but the hurt is still fresh.
Her daughter, Sherri, a 27-year-old Grade 2 teacher, had been at a musical at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre downtown in April 1996 and was driving a friend home and then stopped at her parent's house in Surrey to check on some baby chicks she had taken home from her classroom. After the visit, on her way back home along Scott Road at about 10:30 p.m., an impaired driver driving 120 km/hr in a 60 km/hr zone in the wrong direction down the road came at her. She was killed instantly.
He admitted to smoking marijuana and drinking beer before getting in the car. His blood alcohol level was nearly twice the legal limit. He was sentenced to year in jail.
The what-ifs still haunt her mother.
"If only she had just fumbled with her keys, it was just split seconds," she said of her daughter's chances of missing the accident.
Hoeflicker said her experience with the justice system was infuriating. The driver was found guilty, but sentenced to just eight weeks in a halfway house, and the Crown seemed indifferent to her case.
"It doesn't get better with time, but you do develop coping skills," she said. One of them was joining MADD as their Greater Vancouver chapter president and joining Families for Justice. "It is still on your mind everyday."
Shelley Anne Martin
Abbotsford's Michele Martin was incredibly proud of her only daughter, Shelley, who had studied at prestigious universities in Canada and the U.S. and was on a fellowship at the University of Louisiana in Lafayette when her life was cut short.
The 32-year-old and a friend from Victoria, Colleen Brown, were driving back from a visit to Baton Rouge when an older army veteran who was impaired on prescription drugs and driving on a suspended license rear-ended their car on April 17, 2007, killing her and leaving her friend with a broken back.
Martin was days away from receiving her PhD in English Literature. She was a gifted student — she had completed her course work in four years rather than seven and had a perfect GPA of 4.0 — and was looking forward to a career as a professor.
Martin has only one other child, a son with disabilities, and she is shattered by the loss not only of her daughter, but the loss of her own future.
"I won't ever have grandchildren," Martin wept. "And my son won't have a sister to support him after I'm gone."
The driver was going 160 km/hr. He was charged with vehicular homicide, careless operation of a motor vehicle, driving while under suspension and possession of a controlled substance. He was sentenced to nine years in jail, but may get out this year due to medical problems.
Shelley's mother said the stricter U.S. sentencing doesn't lessen the pain, but she'd like to see Canada follow suit to improve justice for grieving families.
"I would like to see the laws up here be more like in the States," Martin said. "As soon as they do it, put them in jail."
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