SLAVE LAKE, Alta. - An Alberta man who could become the first person in Canada to be jailed indefinitely for impaired driving offences shook with fear and apologized in court Monday for killing a young mother and her three daughters in a head-on collision.

 

Raymond Charles Yellowknee, 35, was appearing at his sentencing hearing that could see him designated a dangerous offender.

 

Yellowknee pleaded guilty just over a year ago to four counts of impaired driving causing death, as well as to criminal flight from police and driving while suspended.

 

He had been drunk and driving a stolen pickup truck when he killed Misty Chalifoux, 28, her daughters Trista, 9, and Larissa, 6, and her stepdaughter Michelle Lisk, 13, on Jan. 20, 2006, near Slave Lake in northwestern Alberta.

 

Misty Chalifoux left behind a husband and two boys, including a child she was still breastfeeding.

 

"I apologize for all the hurt I've caused. I never meant to hurt anyone that night. I never thought it would cause this much trouble," Yellowknee said in a hushed voice. "Every time I see a cop car, I get scared. My scaredness turns to hurt. I can't wake up out of my dreams about it."

 

RCMP said at the time of the crash that when Mounties tried to pull Yellowknee over, he drove off and lost control and then collided head-on with the Chalifoux vehicle.

 

In exchange for his guilty plea, eight other charges were dropped.

 

Dangerous offender status is usually reserved for the most violent criminals and sexual predators in the country.

 

Defence lawyer Laurie Wood says such a designation would go too far in this case. She says Yellowknee, who has three previous impaired driving convictions, is keen to get counselling and turn his life around.

 

Yellowknee told the court how he began drinking at 13 and was sent to an alcohol treatment program when he was 15. By the time he was 18, he was drinking even more heavily and getting into repeated run-ins with police.

 

Yellowknee said he has been free of drugs and alcohol since his incarceration in January 2006 and has promised he will never drink again or drive a vehicle. He said sobriety has made him happier and better able to deal with his personal and legal problems.

 

"I'm done with fighting," he said. "I want to start an autobiography of myself. Figure out where things went wrong, how I can help myself. I don't want to hurt anyone ever again."

 

The Crown suggested that Yellowknee made similar promises in his previous impaired driving cases, but failed to take advantage of substance abuse programs made available to him.

 

The group Mothers Against Drunk Drivers Canada, which is not part of the hearing, said Canadians must be protected against chronic impaired drivers.

 

"He is the poster child for drunk driving and dangerous offender status," said MAAD's Andrew Murie from Oakville, Ont.

 

In 2003, an Ontario man who was convicted of non-fatal impaired driving offences was the subject of a dangerous offender hearing, but accepted the lesser designation of long-term offender in a plea bargain.

 

MADD said about 1,300 people die each year because of impaired drivers in Canada and another 68,000 are injured. Those numbers have remained stable for the last five years, Murie said.

 

The hearing was to continue Tuesday.