Justice committee  There's no question that the impaired driving provisions apply to them and it's an offence. What I don't know is whether the youth criminal courts impose the mandatory fines if they find other ways to deal with it.

Justice committee  With respect to the situation that you outlined, Mr. Thompson, this bill would, in the new proposed subsection 254(2), perhaps go a long way to helping. The current law allows a police officer to demand a roadside screening breath test if they suspect a person--and these are the

Justice committee  No, actually we have a lot of anecdotal evidence. We have some statistics from various courts on the overall rates of acquittals, which are reaching almost 50% now in some courts in the over 80 milligram cases. But they do not specify whether these were over 80 or from an interve

Justice committee  Yes, it's an expensive defence.

Justice committee  No.

Justice committee  No, they have overall figures for all impaired driving charges. It's my understanding that they put them all together: straight impaired driving, over-80 cases, and refusals are all counted as one. So they have an overall conviction rate for that, but they don't break the data do

Justice committee  I do know that a couple of European countries have established levels per se for the active ingredient of marijuana. But I'm not aware of any more recent research that establishes what basis they did that on, beyond what we had before. I believe Corporal Graham is aware of resea

Justice committee  I thought it was almost universal in the United States, but I'm looking towards Corporal Graham, who is in touch with the American experts on this.

Justice committee  I will try to respond to the first part of your question as to what this legislation will change. First of all, it will be mandatory to take part in roadside sobriety tests. Then, if a person fails the test and we know alcohol is not the cause of impairment because the person is

Justice committee  If I've understood correctly, you're referring to the new section 253.1.

Justice committee  That is an offence which was added to the bill by the standing committee during the last Parliament and which we amended somewhat. The purpose is to separate these activities: the taking of drugs and the operating of a vehicle. We think that a driving prohibition would deter youn

Justice committee  This offence only involves the person operating the vehicle and not passengers. However, if the driver knows that a passenger has an illicit drug he could give him, the driver may be charged. People should thus be careful with respect to what passengers are doing, if they are car

Public Safety committee  Yes, that would be an issue.

Public Safety committee  There was some commentary when Tony Blair made a comment to the effect that everybody should be in. That was a couple of months ago. One of the interesting analyses was of the costs involved in getting all 60 million Britons in there and what the actual benefits would be, as oppo

Public Safety committee  Yes.