Drunk driving is canada’s deadliest crime — and one of our most lightly punished
KILLING SOMEONE CAN AMOUNT TO TOKEN STAY IN PRISON
This week the Parole Board of Canada granted full parole to Marco Muzzo, a Toronto man responsible for one of the country’s most horrific drunk driving crashes. A member of one of Canada’s wealthiest families, Muzzo had just arrived on a private jet from a Miami bachelor party when, despite being so drunk he had peed himself, he decided to drive home from the airport in his Jeep Cherokee. Within minutes, after blowing through a stop sign and striking a minivan, he had killed three young children and their grandfather. Although given a 10-year prison sentence in 2016, he’s been on day parole since April, 2020. In another eight years, Muzzo will be able to drive again.
HIS treatment by the Canadian justice system is unfortunately quite typical.
Canada has the worst rate of drunk-driving deaths in the developed world. With an estimated 1,500 fatalities every year, it is Canada’s leading cause of criminal death, well above the 600 to 700 Canadians who die annually in homicides. Yet there is startlingly lenient treatment handed out.
The list below contains the names of impaired drivers who have killed polio survivors, crushed children to death and wiped out entire families. Often, these crimes came after years of serial drunk driving and ignored parole conditions. But in almost every case, killing someone while drunk behind the wheel amounted to only a token stay in prison.
This is an excerpt of a longer list featured at Nationalpost.com.
Alan Wood
Killed a father delivering newspapers with his son: Day parole within 7.5 months
In 2010, Wood was driving at double the speed limit without a licence or insurance when his Chevy Silverado ploughed into a Toyota Tercel carrying Bryan McCron, who was delivering newspapers with his 17-yearold son. As the teen exited the badly damaged Tercel to call 911, Wood then punched him in the stomach. Mccron died of a severed aorta, and although Wood was given a two-year prison sentence, he received day parole after only 7.5 months. “It’s a slap in the face of the victims, again. The value of our loved one is six months in prison,” Vicki Macri, one of Mccron’s sisters, told Peace Arch News.
Roger Walsh
Struck and killed a polio survivor in a wheelchair: Parole in 10 years
Walsh had been given a near-unprecedented life sentence in 2009 for a crash in which he killed Anee Khudaverdian, a polio survivor in a wheelchair who had been out walking her dog in Les Cèdres, Quebec. With a blood alcohol content more than twice the legal limit, Walsh had an incredible 18 prior convictions for drunk driving offences at the time he killed Khudaverdian. But in Canada, a “life sentence” only means that an offender’s parole term never technically ends. After 10 years in prison that saw him take up to 200 escorted leaves per year, Walsh began receiving day parole in 2009.
ANDRÉ sweeney
Crushed a six-year-old boy to death: Parole in four years
Kevin Lavallée, six years old, was killed when, while playing on the sidewalk in front of his rural Quebec home in 2001, he was crushed to death by a truck driven by André Sweeney, who was three times over the legal limit. Although Sweeney’s bid for parole after two years in jail was rejected on the grounds that he hadn’t even attempted to address his alcoholism, the Parole Board of Canada changed their mind by 2006, claiming he had shown “significant evolution” in his treatment.
Chad olsen
Killed the parents of five children: Day parole within seven months
It generated outrage across Alberta when Olsen received only a two-year sentence for a 2010 crash in which he killed Brad and Krista Howe, the parents of five children, ranging in age from six to 15. Olsen’s blood-alcohol content was three times the legal limit, he blew through a stoplight while speeding, and in his short years as a driver he had a lengthy record of offences. A Crown appeal upped Olsen’s prison to 3.5 years, but he was still given day parole within seven months, and full parole by August 2012 — a mere 2.5 years after the crash. He was able to drive again by 2018. “I am not mad at, but angry at the legal system,” Sandra Green, the mother of victim Krista Howe, told the Red Deer Advocate in 2012.
Marie-michelle Benjamin
Killed a father of two: Parole in six months
After a night of drinking that saw her with blood-alcohol content nearly twice the legal limit, in 2017 Benjamin sped her Chevrolet Aveo through two stop signs and one red light before ultimately driving up the wrong way to a bridge approach and striking a car driven by Robert Albert, 60. Handed a three-year term, Benjamin had parole within six months, with the Parole Board of Canada factoring in that Benjamin’s “self-esteem issues” had helped precipitate the collision. “It’s like saying to society that it’s OK to drink and drive. You can kill someone and just do six months,” Lise Albert, Robert’s sister, told the Montreal Gazette in 2019.
johnathan PRATT
Killed three young men: Day parole within four years
With his blood alcohol at nearly 2.5 times the legal limit, Pratt was driving his truck nearly 200 kilometres an hour when, in 2011, just south of Edmonton, he struck a Pontiac Grand Am carrying Bradley Arsenault, 18, Kole Novak, 18, and Thaddeus Lake, 22. The victims were literally disintegrated; Pratt’s truck had smashed its way through the entire passenger compartment, stopping only at the dashboard. Although Pratt received three convictions of manslaughter — rare in impaired driving cases — as is common in Canadian criminal sentencing, he was allowed to serve the sentences at the same time. He received day parole in 2018, almost seven years to the day after the crash. “Three boys died and I think that there should be a sentence of like 10 years per boy,” Zane Novak, father of one of the victims, told Global News in 2014. “A penalty should be paid for each life lost.”
Rita galloway
Killed a 16-year-old girl: Day parole within six months
Galloway already had a conviction for trying to flee the scene of an impaired driving incident. So it’s perhaps no surprise that after she killed 16-year-old Kimberly Ann Sorenson in a head-on collision in Prince Albert, Sask., in 2002, a 48-year-old Galloway similarly tried to flee the scene. Despite accepting no responsibility for the crash, she received only a 2.5 year sentence and was given day parole within six months. Galloway was back to working as teacher within four years of the crash.