Recent immigrant killed by driver in Dartmouth remembered as ‘lovely, sweet, kind’

Suete Chan was a world traveller. She loved photography and good food.

The 27-year-old woman immigrated to Canada in June. Friday would have been her 28th birthday, but on Wednesday morning, Chan was struck by a driver while crossing Pleasant Street in Dartmouth.

She died from her injuries after being taken to the hospital.

Chan worked as the marketing manager for Fairechild, a clothing company based in Dartmouth. Tabitha Osler is the founder of the business, and worked for almost a year to help Chan immigrate.

Osler said Chan was passionate about her work, and had made a tight network of friends since moving to Nova Scotia.

“She was a very lovely, sweet, kind person,” Osler said.

Osler has organized a GoFundMe to help with the costs Chan’s family will incur having to travel across the globe on such short notice. The fund has received an outpouring of support, raising more than $26,000 by Friday afternoon.

“I don’t know how you recover from this, but I know that money can help to buy more time to recover,” Osler said.

Chan was sponsored through the Atlantic Immigration Pilot, a federal program that connects skilled foreign workers with careers in Atlantic Canada. Osler said Chan was “courageous” to be able to move so far from home and pursue what was “a dream come true for her.”

The driver that struck Chan received a summary offence ticket for failing to yield to a pedestrian in a crosswalk, which typically carries a fine of about $700.

Chan was struck in the same stretch of Pleasant Street where another pedestrian was killed in February 2019.

Osler said Chan kept to a tight routine. Chan lived at King’s Wharf and would wake up early to take the Dartmouth ferry to the F45 gym downtown Halifax. Taking the Woodside ferry back, she would walk to work nearby.

“She probably crossed the same crosswalk every day and the cars probably stopped for her. I doubt she thought she was in any danger,” Osler said.

Martyn Williams, the founder of HRM Safe Streets for Everyone, has been lobbying council and the city’s engineering department for years.

“It’s too dangerous a task for a pedestrian to get over four high speed lanes without anything to slow drivers down,” Williams said.

At a transportation standing committee meeting on Thursday, Coun. Tony Mancini addressed Chan’s death.

“This is a very sad day in our municipality,” Mancini said. “We’re all here for many reasons but the primary is to keep our community safe.”

Mancini also noted that Brad Anguish, the municipality’s executive director of transportation and public works, had visited the site following the incident, but gave no specific pledge to fix the issue.