Family to face daughter’s killer as annual anti-drunk driving campaign begins

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This article was published 01/11/2023 (721 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

An annual awareness campaign established to commemorate drunk driving victims began in Manitoba Wednesday, days before the family of a young woman killed in Winnipeg is set to face the man who committed the crime.

“There’s no number in my mind that will be enough,” Karen Reimer said of the impending sentencing against Tyler Goodman, the man who killed her daughter, Jordyn Reimer, last May.

“The only justice would be to get Jordyn back, and we can’t have that.”

Goodman, 29, pleaded guilty to impaired driving causing death and failing to remain at the scene of the accident. He is to appear in court Nov. 7 and Nov. 10, with a Manitoba judge delivering a sentence at a later date.

More than 122 people have submitted victim impact statements, with 73 requesting to speak in court, Reimer said.

“It’s difficult to prepare for it. It almost doesn’t seem real and it’s extremely frustrating. My Jordyn was 24-years-old. She had 60 plus years of her life ahead of her, but the person who killed her … how is it going to be (justice) if that individual ends up doing a couple of years in prison?” she said.

“The only justice would be to get Jordyn back, and we can’t have that.”–Karen Reimer

The hearings are timely, coming immediately after Mothers Against Drunk Driving Canada launched it’s 36th annual Project Red Ribbon. The awareness campaign runs until Jan. 8, and will see hundreds of vehicles on Manitoba roadways fitted with decals and ribbons to commemorate victims and highlight the impact of drunk driving.

Reimer supports the project, but said efforts to prevent drunk driving must include legislative changes, including stricter sentencing and making breathalyzer devices a standard feature on all new vehicles — a move she compared to the implementation of mandatory seat belts in the 1980s.

“When you see 30 plus years of doing this MADD Red Ribbon Project, that’s where a huge amount of frustration comes for our family,” she said. “We look at all the families that have been devastated over the 30 years, what has changed? Not a lot, and that’s very upsetting. These are simple laws that can be changed.”

Such legislation is already in the works in the United States, where congress has introduced a proposal to force auto manufacturers to install anti-impaired driving technology in all new cars starting in 2026. Such technology can range from specialized sensors to breathalyzers.

MADD supports the implementation of similar laws in Canada, where impaired driving is the leading cause of criminal death and injury.

Manitoba RCMP have investigated 17 fatal collisions related to impaired driving this year-to-date, while 36 other people have suffered serious injuries. In total, 495 people have been charged with impaired driving and 870 people have been subject to immediate roadside suspensions for being impaired.

Last year, 19 people were killed as a result of impaired driving, 35 suffered serious injuries and 618 faced charges. The numbers are trending downward compared to 2021, when 28 people died of such crimes and 67 were seriously injured, RCMP data show.

Some of the charges are pending and have not been proven in court.

MADD Canada president Tanya Hansen Pratt launched Project Red Ribbon at RCMP Manitoba headquarters, detailing her own story of personal loss.

“All he could say was, ‘mom’s dead,’” she said, describing the moment her brother — a police officer — told her their mother, Beryl Hansen, was found alone in a water-filled ditch near Portage la Prairie.

Hansen, a recently retired, married 59-year-old mother of three, was struck and killed by an impaired driver while out on a walk on the morning of April 20, 1999.

“We often talk about victims and survivors having to face a new normal, and it is so true. For every one of us, there is a before and there is after. These tragedies do not have to happen,” Hansen Pratt said.

RCMP and the Winnipeg Police Service will conduct increased traffic patrols and check stops until the new year to reduce impaired driving through the holidays.

Mandatory alcohol screening legislation, introduced federally in 2018, allows police to request a roadside breathalyzer from any motorist — without the need for reasonable suspicion of impairment.

MADD Canada’s red ribbons and car decals are available online at madd.ca.

tyler.searle@freepress.mb.ca