On November 23, three members of the Corman Park Police Service received awards from the Saskatoon Chapter of MADD Canada for their efforts in arresting impaired drivers.
Bonny Stevenson, the chapter president for the Saskatoon Chapter of MADD Canada, and her husband, Craig Stevenson, attended at a meeting of the council for the RM of Corman Park and presented three constables with the Van de Vorst Family Award which is awarded annually to police officers who demonstrate extraordinary efforts towards the enforcement of impaired driving laws.
The award is named after the Van de Vorst family who were killed after a collision with an impaired driver in 2016 on Highway 11 at Wanuskewin Road in the RM of Corman Park.
The award was instituted in 2019 as way of encouraging police officers to vigorously enforce impaired driving laws with a view to preventing similar tragedies. Bonny and Craig Stevenson were also affected by impaired driving when their 17-year-old son, Quinn, was killed by an impaired driver in August, 2013.
Craig Stevenson, in addressing the Corman Park Council, praised the efforts of the Corman Park Police Service in their efforts to reduce impaired driving and its impact upon the public.
“We see the efforts of the Corman Park Police all of the time in social media, and the great number of impaired drivers they are apprehending, and it is encouraging for us to see,” he said.
Receiving a gold medallion for his twenty-three impaired driving arrests between April, 2019 and April, 2020 was Constable James Gordon, a two-year member of the Service. Receiving silver medallions were Constable Kyle Rathgeber, a two year member, with fourteen arrests, and Constable Dana Schreiner, a seven year member, with eight arrests.
The Corman Park Police Service is the only police service in Saskatchewan with a policy of administering mandatory breath samples to all motorists stopped by the police between the hours of 6:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m. That policy has led to a drastic increase in the number of impaired drivers being apprehended by the Service.
The CPPS arrested seven impaired drivers in 2018, before the mandatory testing legislation was enacted in December of 2018. In 2019 the Service apprehended 40 impaired drivers, and so far in 2020, the Service has arrested 65 impaired drivers.