In the News

MADD demands answers after ex-MP Jaffer receives break in drunk driving/cocaine case
By Janice Tibbetts
Canwest News Service
March 11, 2010

OTTAWA — MADD, the national advocacy group against drunk driving, has written Ontario's attorney general seeking answers on why charges were dropped against former Conservative MP Rahim Jaffer.

"We can't be out there like raging lunatics making accusations when we don't have the facts," said Andrew Murie, executive director of Mothers Against Drunk Driving, but his organization has questions about the deal.

Murie said that the group wrote Chris Bentley on Wednesday urging the attorney general to "come clean" on why Jaffer secured a plea bargain.

The Crown and defence struck a deal that the judge in the case described as a "break" for Jaffer. Charges of cocaine possession and impaired driving were dropped and Jaffer pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of careless driving. He was fined $500.

Murie said that Crown prosecutors in Ontario and British Columbia are "really bad" in routinely striking plea bargains that let accused impaired drivers off the hook.

Critics contend Jaffer got a sweetheart deal, in light of evidence that he blew over the legal limit in breathalyser tests.

There has been speculation that police flubbed the gathering of evidence, prompting the Crown to say that it did not have a strong enough case for a reasonable chance of conviction.

"We want to know what kind of deal was made and why they didn't proceed on the evidence," Murie said.

Jaffer, a former Edmonton MP who was defeated in the 2008 federal election, was stopped last September by Ontario Provincial Police who clocked him driving over 90 km/h in a 50-km/h zone through the village of Palgrave, northwest of Toronto.

Jaffer had told police he had two beer before getting behind the wheel.