A4 - North Shore News - Wednesday, April 13, 2011
MLA vows never to drink and drive again From page 1
roadside screening device. Once back at the North Vancouver RCMP detachment, the MLA blew two breathalyzer readings of .11, said Jette. The legal limit for blood-alcohol concentration while driving is .08. Jette said despite those readings, there were problems with the Crown’s case against Thornthwaite, including a two-hour delay between the time she was stopped and the time the breathalyzer samples were taken at the police station. The law requires samples to be taken within two hours. Thornthwaite’s lawyer Don Muldoon told Judge Carol Baird Ellan that Thornthwaite had consumed “a modest amount of alcohol” at the Olympic event that night and showed no signs of intoxication. “Her speech was normal. Her balance was normal,” he said. Muldoon said Thornthwaite was entering the plea to the Motor Vehicle Act charge recognizing that she was not exercising the same care and attention that night “that a completely sober person would
have.” Muldoon added the mother of three has been subjected to “considerable publicity” as a result of the incident, and has already served a three-month administrative driving ban. In handing down the sentence, the judge noted Thornthwaite’s readings were “relatively low,” adding another person with blood alcohol readings of .140 had pleaded guilty to the same motor vehicle act charge earlier in the morning. Dressed in a grey suit and flanked by six supporters, Thornthwaite appeared composed before the judge. Outside the court, she said she was “grateful” the court proceedings are over. “I made a serious mistake 14 months ago. I apologized,” she said. “Now it’s time to move on and get on with the job I was elected to do.” Thornthwaite said the most important lesson she’s learned is: “It’s way better to err on the side of caution. . . . I’m never going to have anything to drink if I’m going to drive ever, ever again.” Thornthwaite refused to say how much she’d had to drink on the night she was stopped. “I’m not going to comment on the details of the case,” she said. Thornthwaite’s lawyer stressed that the North Vancouver MLA
was never charged with impaired driving. “The driving was perfectly normal,” he said. Thornthwaite said she’s hoping her constituents will forgive her lapse in judgment. “I’m hoping they will,” she said. “I’m much more than this mistake.” Former North Vancouver school board chairman Chris Dorais also dodged a criminal record when he pleaded guilty to a Motor Vehicle Act of driving without reasonable consideration after he was pulled over on Highway 1 in March 2008. Dorais — who at first tried to keep the charges quiet — subsequently lost his seat on the school board. The decision by Thornthwaite to plead guilty to a less serious offence, thereby avoiding a criminal record and a mandatory oneyear driving ban, is common among people facing drinking driving charges on the North Shore. According to an investigation by the North Shore News last year, of all the drunk drivers who faced charges in the past five years on the North Shore, more than a third made a deal with prosecutors, plea-bargaining their cases down from a criminal charge to a Motor Vehicle Act offence.
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request by the Federation of the Canadian Municipalities for $1.9 billion to help upgrade local infrastructure, something he said is a pressing concern. “When budgets are pressed to the limit, the things that get put on the back burner are the things that are a form of maintenance,” he said. He argued the federal government has to change its culture to examine problems from a more “holistic” point of view. “The world is way too complex right now to solve issues with Band-Aids,” he said. “A healthy economy is entirely predicated on a healthy environment.” Dowman also talked foreign policy, saying Canada has become a laggard on the international stage, pointing to recent criticism of Canada’s action on human rights by Amnesty International.
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