A Progressive Conservative resolution requesting an out-of-province review of the decision not to prosecute an alleged accomplice in the impaired driving-caused death of Jordyn Reimer went nowhere in the legislature Thursday after time expired before it was put to a vote.
Parents Karen and Doug Reimer and two dozen supporters, all wearing purple shirts emblazoned with a photo of Jordyn, a 24-year-old student who was killed in 2022, listened to the debate from the visitors gallery.
The resolution was “talked out” by the NDP as the clock ticked down.
Justice Minister Matt Wiebe, who met with the family in July, said he is standing by the Crown’s decision not to follow the police recommendation to prosecute the man who gave the impaired driver his keys before the fatal collision. Wiebe said again Thursday that he won’t ask for a third-party review of the decision.
Carol Sanders / Free Press
Karen and Doug Reimer (with Progressive Conservative justice critic Wayne Balcaen) say they’re not giving up on a review of the decision to not prosecute an alleged accomplice in the death of their daughter Jordyn Reimer.
He said the case was reviewed twice by two different groups of Crown prosecutors who determined there wasn’t sufficient evidence to lay charges.
“I need to make sure that the decisions I make are not done in any kind of political way — that they’re not done for any reason other than the proper administration of justice in this province,” Wiebe told reporters Thursday. “The steps that I took were to that end.
Wiebe addressed the matter in the house earlier in the day.
“Nothing can ever replace what was taken away from the Reimers,” he said. “What we can do — and what I’m committed to doing — is strengthening the penalties for impaired driving.”
“What we can do — and what I’m committed to doing — is strengthening the penalties for impaired driving.”–Justice Minister Matt Wiebe
Speaking to reporters outside the chamber , Karen Reimer said if the justice minister is confident that his Crown prosecutors made the right decision to not prosecute the so-called enabler, then he should be open to getting an outside opinion.
She and her husband both said they would continue to pursue an independent third-party investigation.
“It’s definitely not over,” she said.
Wiebe said he is working with Mothers Against Drunk Driving Canada to build on provincial legislation and education to deter impaired driving, and invited input from the Reimers and the PCs.
The Reimers have said laws already exist to punish those who aid and abet a crime, and that Winnipeg police told them that there is sufficient evidence to charge one of Tyler Scott Goodman’s passengers with criminal negligence causing death.
Jordyn Reimer was a designated driver when her car was T-boned on May 1, 2022, by Goodman, who was driving 108 km/h in a 50 km/h zone intersection of Bond Street and Kildare Avenue W. in Transcona.
GOFUNDME
Jordyn Reimer photo from gofundme page.
Goodman was sentenced to seven years in prison in November after pleading guilty to impaired driving causing death and leaving the scene of an accident.
In a five-page explanation released in July, the Crown said Goodman and his passengers spent several hours drinking at Joe’s Pandora Inn, where a woman at the bar took Goodman’s truck keys to prevent him from driving. One of his passengers took the keys from her. She told him Goodman should not drive and the passenger told her that he would drive, as he wasn’t as intoxicated as Goodman.
Surveillance video showed Goodman and three passengers approach the vehicle and it appeared the person with the keys unlocked the doors before they entered. Police later found the key fob in the front passenger side door pocket.
The Crown said it would need to prove the passenger intended to assist Goodman, and that he knew or was wilfully blind to the fact that Goodman was too impaired to drive. The passenger’s intoxication, it said, could have prevented him from intentionally aiding or abetting Goodman. There was no evidence Goodman exhibited “significant outward signs” of being impaired before leaving the bar, the Crown said.
There is no reported case law where criminal liability has been found in similar circumstances and charging a passenger in such a case would be “novel,” the Crown said. It said it couldn’t prove the case against the passenger beyond a reasonable doubt based on the evidence and “alternative reasonable inferences.”
carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca
Carol Sanders
Legislature reporter
Carol Sanders is a reporter at the Free Press legislature bureau. The former general assignment reporter and copy editor joined the paper in 1997. Read more about Carol.
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