This need not happen (en francais)

This is so sad, especially when there are designated driving services available to get your car home. Ottawa has one. So does Windsor (Cruise Control), London, (Keys Please) and Oshawa (Keys to Us).

(PS. If anyone has the link for Ottawa's dd service, please email me so I can amend the post. I had it at one time but seem to have misplaced it.)

New drunk-driving charges reopen wounds never healed for Tory families

Dan Dugas
Canadian Press

Saturday, October 22, 2005

OTTAWA (CP) - In a corner of Senator Marjory LeBreton's office sits an arrangement of fresh white roses, daisies and lilies from Brian and Mila Mulroney.

The card is marked: "The sun will shine again."

The sun is obscured by a tragedy for LeBreton that seems to have no end.

The story is of unspeakable loss, anger, sorrow and bizarre coincidence that has shattered relationships between intertwined blue-blooded political families which will likely never heal.

LeBreton, who worked as Mulroney's appointments secretary, lost a daughter and grandson nearly 10 years ago to a drunk driver named Matt Brownlee.

Brownlee is a nephew of Bonnie Brownlee and Bill Fox, the husband and wife team who worked as press secretaries for former prime minister Mulroney and his wife, Mila.

Matt Brownlee, who served seven years for drunk driving causing the deaths of Linda LeBreton-Holmes and her 12-year-old son, Brian, in suburban Ottawa was again charged this month with drunk driving and driving without a licence.

The new charges against Brownlee, 33, have not been proven in a court of law but have re-opened old emotional wounds.

"I was stunned at the news," said the Conservative senator known for fierce loyalty to Mulroney and being the former prime minister's eyes and ears in Ottawa.