On May 20, my car was stolen. Not by a thief in the night, or because I left it running outside a store. No — the man who took it was sitting in a black and white Sûreté du Québec cruiser, parked on the side of the highway, lying in wait.
I wasn’t speeding, texting, drunk, or high. My crime? Being a single mother driving what I could afford: a rusty but reliable old Corolla with an exhaust leak. A car that had faithfully carried me around the Pontiac — to cover local news in every kind of weather, to school, to the grocery store, and to church on Sunday. It wasn’t pretty, but it was sound.
When the officer heard my jalopy crest a hill, he pulled me over and said he was stopping me for the exhaust leak. Fair enough. I expected a ticket. But then he gave the car a meticulous once-over and wrote an order for a full mechanical inspection, citing the exhaust, surface rust, and other cosmetic flaws. I had 48 hours to either have the car inspected or remove the car from the road entirely.
Most people know an old car like that won’t pass a safety inspection. Not because it’s unsafe, but because it’s old — and if you look hard enough, you’ll find thousands in “necessary” work. The same garage that performs
the inspection often stands to profit from the repairs.
Just like that, my Toyota was grounded. And I was left a rural, working single mother with no way to get to work or transport my child where he needs to go.
And for what? The car posed no real danger. It wasn’t falling apart. The officer’s actions felt unnecessarily harsh — not just enforcing the law, but punishing someone for being poor. I’ve since wondered if he ever stops to consider how his decisions affect the people he’s sworn to protect. That vehicle was not just a car — it was a lifeline.
In the Pontiac, not having a car isn’t an inconvenience — it’s a crisis. There’s no public transit, no Uber, and no taxis. You can’t just walk to the store or take a bus to work. I had to sink my entire savings into another vehicle. That officer’s decision — lawful or not — cost my family our safety net. It felt like being carjacked by the system.
Over 10 years of driving rural Outaouais highways, I’ve seen the real danger: aggressive drivers in shiny new SUVs doing 130 in a 90 zone, passing on double yellows into oncoming traffic. These are the behaviours that cause fatal crashes. I rarely see them stopped.
Instead, it’s the working poor who are sidelined because we drive what we can afford.
