More time for amber light fight

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This article was published 12/06/2017 (3072 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

To quit fighting a red-light camera ticket in hopes of pushing for longer amber lights would feel, according to one Winnipeg man, akin to giving metastasized lung cancer permission to kill him quickly, unchecked.

Never mind that the stakes are so very different, says James Aisaican-Chase: “If you give up in your life struggles, if you give up fighting cancer, then you give up fighting just causes.”

The 71-year-old made headlines in late April when he testified in advance of his September trial just in case he died before having a chance to take the stand. Last December, doctors gave Aisaican-Chase six months to live, with the clock set to run out at the end of this month.

He wasn’t supposed to see his September trial, but now he just might. Chemotherapy successfully shrunk the mass on Aisaican-Chase’s liver and the prognosis is a little less dire.

“I’m on God’s time,” he says during a sunny morning stroll around the block. He finally feels well enough to take the occasional walk.

Aisaican-Chase was en route to a medical appointment when he drove through an amber light at River Road on Bishop Grandin Boulevard on Oct. 16, 2015. He testified that he was maintaining a steady speed and was shocked when he received a ticket for running a red light in the mail a few weeks later. His car had taken barely a third of a second longer than the four seconds of allotted amber to cross the intersection. For that, he got a ticket.

The Crown tried to drop the charges after learning of his terminal cancer, but Aisaican-Chase refused. He was adamant that four seconds was too short for such a high-speed (80 km/h) road. Still, he says, the stress of the decision did weigh on him.

It was a friend who connected Aisaican-Chase with Todd Dube and Wise Up Winnipeg, who have been pushing for longer amber lights for years now, fighting photo enforcement practices throughout the city that they say have more to do with revenue than they do safety.

Dube was looking for a case to use to launch a challenge to Winnipeg’s amber-light times and says he picked Aisaican-Chase not because he was dying — Wise Up Winnipeg learned that later — but because he felt the amber time at River Road on Bishop Grandin Boulevard was particularly problematic, having driven through it himself.

Dube’s choice was particularly beneficial for Aisaican-Chase. Not only did Dube absorb the legal fees, he says, but it allowed him to feel like he was still following his conscience while at the same time freeing up mental space to fight his cancer.

“It took the pressure off me,” he says, “it allowed me to spend more time in prayer, more time with my doctors, more time with the chemo people.”

The idea that Aisaican-Chase will likely live to see his trial though is “just dynamite,” Dube says. “The part that bothered us (at Wise Up) is that Jim wouldn’t be here… I’m glad he’s going to be here.”

Aisaican-Chase says he doesn’t know how much time he has; after all its “still an active cancer, it’s still a very aggressive cancer.” But he’s hoping his cancer will emulate his mother’s. She was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 1963 and given six months to live. More than five decades later, Aisaican-Chase still talks to her daily over the phone.

“I don’t say, ‘oh, tomorrow I’m going to be alive’ because you never know,” he says, “but I live every day in absolute joy and I like the idea that I could see the results of this.”

His case goes to trial in early September.

jane.gerster@freepress.mb.ca