Politicians backpaddle on drunk canoeing

C-46 AMENDMENT

Canadian MPs have decided to continue to allow police to lay impaired driving charges against drunken canoeists. where it can be extremely dangerous to have somebody impaired in the water,” he said.

Police are always able to charge someone for being intoxicated in public and engaging in dangerous activity, but being charged with an impaired driving offence under the Criminal Code triggers harsh provincial punishment, including automatic driver’s licence suspensions.

In a quirky grey area, however, Canada’s impaired driving laws only require that a road vehicle — not watergoing vessels — be motorized to qualify. Vessels are not defined in the Criminal Code at all, aside from an instruction that hovercraft are included.

It means impaired driving laws don’t apply to bicycles, but some jurisdictions apply them to canoes, kayaks and even inflatable rafts.

The original version of the bill specified that vessels excluded those “propelled exclusively by means of muscular power.” Fraser’s amendment removes that language, leaving the vague definition in place.

The CSBC’s John Gullick said he’s still not fully happy, as he was hoping to have the definition changed to explicitly include canoeists.

“But we have a victory in the sense that it’s now back the way it was,” he said. “I’m very happy that they listened to us.”

Police in Ontario have occasionally laid impaired driving charges against canoeists, but sometimes dropped them when prosecutors decided there wasn’t a reasonable chance of conviction.

Fraser said he wants to leave it up to the courts to develop the case law on drunk canoeing, rather than having the government clarify it.

“I really don’t think that we’re opening up Pandora’s box here. It’s been pretty rare,” he said. “I think it’s probably better to just keep the law the way it is already.”