Lawyers representing the Crown and legal aid are asking a P.E.I. judge to send a Lennox Island woman to prison for just over four years for her impaired driving that killed two people in a June 2025 crash.

Kevin Labobe, 54, and Karissa-Jo Bernard, 22, were pronounced dead at the scene after the vehicle 22-year-old Angelina Bernard was driving left the road while the three were returning to the First Nations community. 

The court previously heard her blood-alcohol reading was just under three times the legal limit. 

“I lost my husband, Kevin, because someone chose to drive while impaired. That choice took away the person I love most in this world,” Judy Bernard wrote in a victim impact statement.

“Since losing him, my life has become something I barely recognize. I don’t feel like the same person anymore.”

Her statement was read aloud in court by her daughter during a sentencing hearing Wednesday afternoon in provincial court in Summerside. 

Karissa Bernard’s sister Alyssa also read from the statement she submitted, noting that this incident has had a profound impact on everyone it touched — from the three families to the witnesses and first responders, as well as the ripple effects felt by the 715 community members who live on Lennox Island.

”Some carry grief, some carry trauma, some carry questions that will never have answers. But we all carry something,” she told Chief Judge Krista MacKay.

“Drinking and driving is not an accident. It is not bad luck. It is a choice. There are so many other decisions that could have been made that day.”

When Angelina Bernard pleaded guilty last month, the court heard that all three of the vehicle’s occupants had blood-alcohol levels above the legal limit.

Angelina Bernard also chose to speak on Wednesday, stating that nothing she could say would bring back the two people who were killed.

“From the bottom of my heart, I am truly sorry.… It was supposed to be a fun day but it turned into a nightmare,” she told the packed courtroom while fighting back tears. 

“Living with the memories of it all will be a punishment in and of itself.”

Driver has ‘sympathetic’ background, court hears

The Crown attorney and Angelina Bernard’s legal aid lawyer asked the judge to consider their joint recommendation of 52 months in custody, which is a total of about four years and four months across four charges.

Under this proposal, Angelina Bernard would serve two 50-month sentences at the same time: one for each of the impaired driving causing death charges she pleaded guilty to.

She would then serve two other 60-day sentences at the same time — one for dangerous driving and one for refusal a breathalyzer in an unrelated impaired driving incident from four months before the fatal crash.

The proposal would also ban Bernard from driving for 10 years after she leaves federal prison.

The judge is scheduled to render her decision early next week.

“This is not a joint recommendation that was come to lightly [or] quickly,” legal aid lawyer Ben Campbell said, adding there was a significant amount of research in how others have been sentenced in comparable situations. 

Crown attorney Chad McQuaid told the judge there were many factors that made this fatal case more serious, including the driver’s two prior impaired driving offences — one on her criminal record and another for which she was awaiting sentencing — as well as her “very high” blood-alcohol level. 

McQuaid also said there were mitigating circumstances, including that she pleaded guilty and spared the community the pain of a trial, as well as her personal circumstances, which he called “sympathetic.”

The court heard Angelina Bernard is Indigenous and her background reflects significant intergenerational trauma, including the legacy of the residential school attended by her great-grandmother. 

Her mother died when she was young, and she was raised in a household with substance abuse, physical discipline and “other issues,” her lawyer said.

Campbell told the judge she started drinking alcohol and using cannabis when she was around nine years old. She also experienced violence in her relationships, including sexual abuse when she was a child and into her adulthood. 

She has also struggled with anxiety, and all of those struggles returned her on a path to substance abuse. 

Empty seats — forever

As part of her victim impact statement, Alyssa Bernard described her sister Karissa as someone full of light and laughter, who still chose goodness even after her own struggles.

She said her sister was also trying to get sober and went to detox just one week before the collision. 

She said her sister had been attending meetings for people who have struggled with drug dependency, and Karissa had just received her first chip. Alyssa Bernard said that might seem small to some, but it was huge for their family.

“I didn’t just lose my sister. I lost the person I was supposed to grow old with.… I lost the phone calls, the laughs,” she said.

”Prince Edward Island continues to face some of the highest impaired driving rates in Canada, but statistics don’t prepare you for when it becomes your family.”

Judy Bernard wrote that she feels consumed by the loss of her husband, who was a warm person who loved to sing, laugh and play the guitar.

“Kevin is still with me, but not in the way he should be. I carry his ashes with me every day. I bring him up and down the stairs. I sit him at the table with me because I can’t bare the thought of him not being there,” she wrote.

“The shock has worn off, now all that’s left is the reality that this is my life forever.”

Alyssa Bernard told the court her family feels no hatred towards Angelina Bernard, who was a childhood friend of her sister.

”There will forever be an empty seat at our table,” she said. “I feel like a guardian angel was with Angie that day.… Somehow she was protected and they were not.

“I hope this second chance is not wasted.”