Bill C-73 (Historical)

Dangerous and Impaired Driving Act

An Act to amend the Criminal Code (offences in relation to conveyances) and the Criminal Records Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts

This enactment amends the provisions of the Criminal Code that govern offences in relation to conveyances. The amendments, among other things,
(a) harmonize the prohibitions and penalties for offences in relation to the operation of conveyances;
(b) increase the penalties for repeat offences in relation to the operation of conveyances;
(c) modernize the procedures for determining whether a person’s ability to operate a conveyance is impaired by a drug, and for analyzing breath samples to determine a person’s blood alcohol concentration;
(d) provide for rules governing the disclosure of information with respect to the results of analyzing breath samples; and
(e) recognize that evaluating officers are experts in determining whether a person’s ability to operate a conveyance is impaired by a drug.
The enactment also amends the Criminal Records Act to remove the offences of impaired driving and failure or refusal to comply with a demand as exceptions to the offences that result in a record suspension ceasing to have effect.
Finally, the enactment makes consequential amendments to those Acts and to other Acts.

[Greg Yost, Counsel, Criminal Law Policy Section, Department of Justice]

There will undoubtedly be a constitutional challenge to any higher mandatory minimum penalties.

I think it would be fair to say that the bill introduces a higher mandatory minimum penalty for a fourth offence by someone reconvicted of impaired driving. It also introduces higher mandatory minimum penalties when you proceed on indictment. There are also a number of changes for the mandatory minimum penalties coming in for causing bodily harm and causing death offences, and they're extended beyond the impaired driving to dangerous driving and other offences. There are actually a large number of new mandatory minimum penalties in the bill.

We are, of course, aware of Supreme Court jurisprudence. The people who supported higher mandatory minimum penalties in the past considered that a gradation—going first, second, third, starting at a low level of $1,000 fine, and working towards a one-year minimum on a fourth offence—would be defensible.

I'm not going to say it would be upheld, but it would be defensible, and the same would be true if it were extended to dangerous driving and other offences. That was the reasoning behind that, which I'm sure you realize was the case in the previous government's Bill C-73.

Dangerous and Impaired Driving Act

[Peter MacKay, Conservative, Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-73, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (offences in relation to conveyances) and the Criminal Records Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)