DUI reopens old wounds for two political families
By Dan Dugas
Canadian Press
October 22, 2005

OTTAWA -- 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 bizzare 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.

"I'd tried to put it at the back of my mind because it's been almost 10 years since my daughter and grandson were killed . . . And I am angry."

LeBreton, who serves as the national chair of Mothers Against Drunk Driving, thinks Brownlee should be declared a dangerous offender and locked up indefinitely.

Brownlee family members, including his aunt, Bonnie, have been quoted in a newspaper article as saying that they are angry because Matt has been able to check himself out of mental hospital where his father had him committed.

They complain that brain injuries from the 1996 accident make him unable to understand his destructive behaviour and fault a system that cannot force his hospitalization.

But the Brownlees' defence of Matt re-opens the schism between the old friends who once worked so closely together.

"My goodness, they just don't get it," said LeBreton. "They're treating this as if it's a public relations exercise and somehow or another there's a story to be told on behalf of Matt Brownlee.

"It's never him, and it's never them, it's the system that let him down, and I was actually quite angry when I read that because not once in that whole article was there any remorse or any regret for what he's done."

There is no need to ask the senator if she can forgive.

"Forgiveness must be a gene missing in my family," LeBreton said.

The fact that political families seem caught in three-degrees of separation, or what LeBreton calls "the vortex," has not escaped Mulroney, she added.

"He's been extremely supportive because he knows how difficult this all is."

LeBreton says she runs into Bonnie Brownlee now and then and finds it uncomfortable.

"I used to see Bonnie when we were going though the court proceedings. She did come up to me when the trial was going on and expressed her regrets and I told her I was not very impressed with her family and she acknowledged she could understand why."

She described Bill Fox as "a big emotional Irishman and I can tell he has great difficulty with it, you can see it in his face."

Bonnie Brownlee's reaction to LeBreton's assessment of her comments is quiet, reserved.

"I've had hundreds of phone calls from journalists in the 10 years since the accident and never gave an interview," she said.

"It's a horrible situation and I wish I could go back and change it all and I'm not even comfortable speaking about it at this point.

"This isn't about a PR campaign, it's about a system that won't take care of someone who needs 24-hour-a-day psychiatric care -- we committed him twice and the system let him go twice."

Brownlee says she understands LeBreton's deep feelings of pain and anguish.

"She's entirely deserving of whatever feeling that she has, I completely understand that. I feel terrible about it, there aren't word to articulate this, there are no words to say how sorry we are, how we feel as a family, nothing can compare to that loss that she's going through.

"I think about Marjory a lot. I wish I could bring an angel down and change everything and put their life back the way it was."

The almost surreal connection between the parties began to reveal itself the night of the accident as LeBreton sat in the hospital waiting room.

"The night was such a blur but I remember running into Bonnie's mother in the hospital and I said 'Lois, what are you doing here?' and she said 'My grandson has been very seriously hurt,' and I said 'Well, my grandson has been killed,' but I didn't make the connection at that precise moment."

LeBreton says she is frustrated by a weak justice system and has been working on a bill to lower the allowable blood alcohol level for driving to 50 milligrams of alcohol per 100 millitres of blood from the existing 80 parts.

She says such countries as France, Germany and Australia have already moved to the lower level.