Skip to content

Horne settles parking schmozzle

Justice Minister Marian Horne quietly paid a $250 parking ticket last week, after her vehicle was spotted parked in a handicapped space in downtown Whitehorse on January 25.

Justice Minister Marian Horne quietly paid a $250 parking ticket last week, after her vehicle was spotted parked in a handicapped space in downtown Whitehorse on January 25.

Horne was having her hair cut and coloured at Horwood’s Mall at the time. When the Yukon News confronted her afterwards, she offered several confusing and contradictory explanations and left in tears.

Her grey GMC Jimmy is easily identified, thanks to a vanity plate that says “TLING8,” in reference to her Tlingit ancestry. It had no handicapped permit on its windshield.

And the vehicle was so poorly parked that it blocked the sidewalk.

Whitehorse’s bylaw department phoned Horne following the publication of the article. She quickly agreed to pay the ticket, said bylaw chief David Pruden.

An MLA in Horne’s position should offer a clear explanation and an apology, say the leaders of both the Liberals and the NDP. To date, she’s offered neither.

The News has twice asked Horne to clarify the parking debacle. She’s declined.

Horne parked the vehicle herself, according to a mall employee. It was later moved across the street by a hair stylist - but not before the vehicle was photographed.

Horne first claimed that she didn’t know who parked her vehicle in the handicapped space. When pressed, she conceded that was untrue.

She knew. But she wouldn’t say.

“I don’t think it’s any of your business,” Horne said at the time.

Her predicament would be embarrassing for anyone, but it’s especially so for the Justice minister of a government that amended the territory’s laws last year so the city could crack down on scofflaws caught parking in handicapped spaces.

Since the city began cracking down on scofflaw drivers who have illegally parked in handicapped spaces in September, bylaw officers have issued approximately 30 tickets each month.

Several of those tickets are due to photographs of illegally-parked vehicles sent to City Hall by residents, said Pruden. Doing so has become far easier, now that “everyone seems to have a cellphone with a camera.”

Contact John Thompson at johnt@yukon-news.com.