SOBER THOUGHTS ON IMPAIRED DRIVING BILL
When the federal Liberal government unveiled its overhaul of impaired driving legislation in April 2017, one of the most surprising changes was that it was to allow police to request breath samples from drivers whenever they wanted — officers didn’t need to suspect the driver was impaired.
Other nations, such as Australia and Ireland, say these powers to randomly breathalyze drivers dramatically reduce impaired driving. That’s a noble objective. Even in Canada today, which has had impaired driving laws in some form since 1921, 1,000 people are killed annually, and another 60,000 injured, according to Mothers Against Drunk Driving. And the Liberals, in justifying random breath testing, claim that 50 per cent of impaired drivers get away scot-free.
The Senate’s legal and constitutional affairs committee voted to remove that provision from the legislation. During testimony to the House of Commons committee studying the bill last year, witnesses raised some fairly significant concerns about this provision: in a court system already plagued with delays, wouldn’t police powers designed to catch more people cause even more problems? Wouldn’t minorities, who are already more heavily scrutinized by police, bear the brunt of such a change? And what about Charter of Rights and Freedoms protections against unreasonable search and seizure? The Supreme Court of Canada recognizes that a breath sample is a fairly intrusive bit of evidence-gathering.
“We had criminal defence lawyers with lengthy careers in this field tell us that these provisions would lead to a decade of charter challenge litigation,” said Conservative Sen. Denise Batters, who moved the amendment.
While the committees heard from other experts who said such a rule would survive a charter challenge there’s little doubt the battles would be long and expensive for all concerned.
We have little sympathy for those who drink and drive. It’s a tremendously self-centred and anti-social behaviour. The government is right to consider policies that will work to put an end to it. But more debate and study are needed. The negative impacts of such provisions have been well-elucidated, and the government’s defence hasn’t been particularly inspired. Our politicians should strive for some sobriety in re-examining this idea.