Young releases photo of makeup case to refute distracted driving story
Coalition Vancouver mayoral candidate Wai Young has responded to last week’s story in The Province about her recent distracted driving ticket by releasing a photo of the makeup compact she said police mistook for a cellphone.
Young, who has focused her mayoral campaign on road safety and vowed to crack down on “lawless” cyclists and pedestrians, failed to appear at a scheduled hearing the week before over a ticket she received last year for using an electronic device while driving.
When asked last week about the 2017 ticket, Young said the police officer who issued it had mistaken her makeup compact for a phone.
Coalition Vancouver’s news release included a photo of her makeup compact alongside her cellphone with a statement from Young saying: “I fully support laws governing distracted driving.”
Asked Friday if she wanted to provide any additional information about an earlier ticket she received in October 2012 for driving in Vancouver while using an electronic device — and whether she believed that police officer had issued the earlier ticket by mistake as well — Young’s campaign team replied by email: “She takes full responsibility for any traffic ticket she has been issued.”
In Vancouver’s unusually crowded mayoral race this year, most candidates are campaigning largely on housing issues. But Young, a former Conservative MP for Vancouver South, has stood out with her focus on transportation and her pledge to tear up bike lanes.
An August news release from Coalition Vancouver said: “Adding to Vancouver’s massive congestion is an absolute disregard for the law on our streets that has grown every year. There is an attitude of entitlement from cyclists and pedestrians and others.”
Young also said she “questions why radical Kennedy Stewart was given a pass for being criminally convicted of contempt of court.
“Why is a woman powdering her nose at a stop light a front-page story versus Socialist Stewart who thinks he’s above the law?”
Stewart, running for mayor this year as an independent, pleaded guilty in May to one count of criminal contempt of court arising from his involvement in protests against Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain Pipeline project.
Asked Friday to clarify what she meant about Stewart being “given a pass,” Young replied with an emailed statement saying:
“This is an election issue and very relevant to the choice Vancouverites are soon going to be making, yet it is getting virtually zero coverage today. That’s wrong.”
A cursory review showed more than a dozen stories about Stewart’s arrest, charge and conviction have run in the The Province and its sister paper The Vancouver Sun in recent months, including front-page stories.
It has been widely covered in other print and broadcast media.