A Gatineau, Que., mother is upset an unpaid parking ticket led the provincial police to impound her car and strand her family hours from home at a gas station.

Chelsey Massé says on the evening of Sept. 26 she was driving on Highway 85 through Témiscouata-sur-le-Lac, Que., — near the New Brunswick border — when a Sûreté du Québec officer pulled her over.

Massé was travelling with her husband, Sébastien Leblanc, and their one-month-old son Alexy. When the family was stopped, they were about six-and-a-half hours into their drive to visit family in Grand Falls, N.B.

Massé said the officer told her an unpaid parking ticket in Gatineau had caused her licence to be suspended on Sept. 23.

As a result, the vehicle was being immediately impounded for 30 days and Massé was issued a $481 fine.

A couple and their newborn baby were left stranded in rural Quebec as their car was impounded. 0:22

"I got out of the car and I burst into tears and I said, 'What do you mean you're seizing my car? I have a baby and the car is fully packed,'" said Massé.

According to Massé, the SQ officer didn't offer any assistance on what to do next.

"All he said is you're going to have to figure it out," she said.

'He told me to stop crying'

Massé insists she never once swore or insulted the officer.

"Every time I was telling him, 'You can't leave me here. I can't believe you're going to leave me here.' He would just say he can't do anything. At some point he told me to stop crying," said Massé.

Massé said the officer refused to drive her and her family to the police station, but she said he let her drive a couple of hundred metres to exit the four-lane highway.

The family parked their car just off the highway at an Ultramar gas station and McDonald's restaurant while they waited for the tow truck.

Family will have to return in a month to retrieve car

Massé said as soon as the tow truck arrived, the officer left.

"What seemed more important to him was impounding our car, not worrying about our welfare," she said.

The family was eventually picked up by a relative, who drove close to two hours to reach them while they waited in the McDonald's.

Massé paid the ticket to reinstate her licence and then rented a car in New Brunswick to make the return trip home to Gatineau. She'll need to drive back to Témiscouata-sur-le-Lac after Oct. 29 to retrieve her car.

Drive with suspended licence at own risk, police say

SQ spokesperson Lt. Jason Allard said it is police policy to make sure when a vehicle is seized that the occupants are left in a secure and safe environment.

"We will not leave people on the side of the highway for two reasons," Allard said. "First of all for their safety and also them being by foot on the side of the highway is an infraction to the highway code."

He said exactly what arrangements are made are up to the officer's discretion.

"Definitely we make sure these people are in a safe location, but you have to understand it's up to their means after to find a way home and alternate transport," he said.

Allard said people who leave home and drive with a suspended licence are putting everyone in their vehicle at risk.

"If they do leave with a vehicle and they have a suspended licence, they have to expect that their vehicle will be seized," he said.

'I should have paid it on time'

Lt. Jason Allard with the Sureté du Québec says people who drive with a suspended licence are taking a big risk. 'They have to expect that their vehicle will be seized,' he says. (CBC News)

Massé's troubles stem from a parking ticket she received in Gatineau in December 2015.

A letter she received in early September from Quebec's auto insurance board warned that if she failed to pay the ticket, her licence would be suspended effective Sept. 23, three days before the SQ officer pulled her over.

"I should have paid it on time. I was mad at myself for putting my family in that situation," said Massé, who believes she was distracted by the birth of her child, the death of a grandparent and a family move.

Still, adds Massé, she doesn't believe the punishment fits the crime and has a hard time believing the family would be left stranded.

"What was hurting me the most was knowing that in 2016 you can leave a family with a one-month-old baby in the middle of nowhere," she said of the roadside location.

After her experience, she has a message for the police force and its officers.

"Be a little empathetic," she said.