Jane Hobson, Centretown News
Somerset Coun. Catherine McKenney and Mothers Against Drunk Driving have succeeded in dedicating a fountain outside of city hall to the victims of impaired driving.Ottawa city council voted unanimously on Oct. 28 to dedicate a fountain outside of city hall to victims of impaired driving and provide their loved ones with a place to reflect and remember.
City council supported a motion for advocacy group Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) to fund and install a commemorative marker by the fountain at Marion Dewar Plaza.
The marker is set to be installed in the spring.
The memorial will be the first of its kind in Ottawa. Memorial benches and other markers dedicated to victims of impaired driving have been installed across Canada.
“Where the fountain is, right at city hall – the people’s place – I don’t think that could be any better,” says MADD board member Gregg Thomson. “It’s a perfect place to hold that kind of memorial.”
This year, MADD’s Ottawa branch is turning 20 years old.
Thomson has been a volunteer with MADD for 17 years.
Thomson’s son, Stan, along with four others, were killed in a crash outside of Perth, Ont., in June 1999.
Stan was 18 years old and had recently graduated from Earl of March Secondary School in Kanata.
Since his son’s death, Thomson has dedicated much of his life to trying to stop impaired driving.
“What this memorial will do, is (it) will make sure that anybody who has been impacted by impaired driving, that they will not be forgotten,” Thomson says, “and it gives us a meeting point, … where we can all kind of collect.”
Last spring, MADD Canada reached out to Somerset Coun. Catherine McKenney, who brought the motion to city council.
She says the marker provides a place for families to grieve.
McKenney’s daughter, Tricia, had also attended Earl of March and knew several of the victims killed in the crash.
McKenney says it was a huge loss for the community at the time.
“These are not accidents when people get behind the wheel and they are impaired,” McKenney says. “It is a crime and we have to do everything we can to stop it from happening.”
MADD provides services for victims of impaired driving, and works with different levels of government on creating laws related to drinking.
MADD also organizes annual awareness campaigns such as Project Red Ribbon.
While Ottawa has among the lowest impaired driving rates in Canada, there are about 432 recorded incidents of impaired driving every year and six people have died since 2010, Ottawa police statistics show.
MADD says there are about 1,250 to 1,500 impaired driving deaths every year in Canada and is the number one criminal cause of death.
In 2013, Alan Seguin, 54, was killed after an impaired driver crashed into his vehicle at the corner at Bank Street and Laurier Avenue while fleeing from police.
“In this day and age with all of the warning . . . every year, you hear about people being arrested for drinking and driving or someone else has been killed because a drunk driver has hit them,” says Ottawa mayor Jim Watson, who seconded McKenney’s motion.
At the council meeting, Watson spoke about his own experience with an impaired driver.
In the mid-1980s, Watson was driving his Toyota Camry on Gladstone Avenue when it was struck by an impaired driver outside of St. Anthony’s of Padua Church.
While Watson only sustained minor injuries, his car had to be scrapped.
Watson says the marker gives the broader community a chance to “to think twice about being in a car when intoxicated.”
“If you choose to drive impaired, there’s actual real families and real people in behind that decision,” says Thomson.