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Mandatory driver alcohol screening starts today
Drivers across Canada are going to be held to higher standards with fewer rights starting tomorrow (Dec. 18).
New federal legislation (Bill C-46) coming into effect allows police officers to require any lawfully-stopped driver to provide a preliminary breath sample, without reasonable suspicion that the driver has consumed alcohol. Previously, an officer had to have a reasonable suspicion.
Bill C-46 was passed June 20 to be “a modern, simplified, and more coherent system of reforms to better deter and detect drug and alcohol-impaired driving,” the Department of Justice explains on its website. The Bill received Royal Assent on June 21, when elements of the legislation related to drug-impaired driving came into force.
Tomorrow’s Criminal Code changes includes mandatory alcohol screening, facilitating the proof of blood alcohol concentration, eliminating and limiting defenses that reward risk-taking behaviour, and clarifying Crown disclosure obligations.
The Bill is hailed by the federal government as the “most comprehensive reform to the Criminal Code transportation regime in more than 40 years.
“Under the current law, police officers must have reasonable suspicion that a driver has alcohol in their body before doing any roadside testing. When Part 2 of the legislation comes into force, police officers who have an approved screening device on hand will be able to test a breath sample of any driver they lawfully stop, even without reasonable suspicion that the driver has alcohol in their body. This would be done after the person has been lawfully stopped pursuant to existing authority (common law or provincial highway traffic act). A driver who refused to provide a breath sample could be subject to a criminal offence,” the Justice Department outlined.
“Research suggests that up to 50% of drivers with a blood alcohol concentration above the legal limit are not detected at roadside check stops. Mandatory alcohol screening will assist in deterring individuals impaired by alcohol from driving, as well as better detect those who do. It is currently authorized in over 40 countries worldwide, including Australia, New Zealand, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, The Netherlands and Sweden. Authorities in Ireland credit mandatory screening reducing the number of deaths on Irish roads by approximately 40% in the first four years after it was enacted.”
The new legislation also attacks a common defence for impaired drivers.
“Under the current law, drivers can argue that alcohol that they drank just before driving was not fully absorbed and so they were not over the limit when driving. This is known as the “bolus drinking defence.” The new law removes this defence by making it illegal to be at or over the alcohol limit within two hours of driving.
“Further, under the current law, a driver may claim they consumed alcohol after driving but before testing. They can claim that this alcohol is what put them over the limit at the time of testing and that they were not over the limit while they were driving. The new law only allows this defence in a situation where a driver drank after driving and had no reason to expect a demand by the police for breath testing.”
Last July Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government defeated a Senate provision to Bill C-46, led by Conservative Senators, to delete the provision allowing random roadside breathalyzer tests, without needing to have reasonable grounds to suspect the driver may be impaired by alcohol.
In a constituents report in June, Kootenay-Columbia MP Wayne Stetski said that section of C-46 “may well end up being tested in court for its constitutionality.”
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