Bill C-32 (Historical)

An Act to amend the Criminal Code (impaired driving) and to make consequential amendments to other Acts

This enactment amends the Criminal Code
(a) to create an offence of operating a motor vehicle while in possession of a controlled substance as defined in subsection 2(1) of the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act;
(b) to authorize specially trained peace officers to conduct tests to determine whether a person is impaired by a drug or a combination of alcohol and a drug;
(c) to authorize the taking of bodily fluids to test for the presence of alcohol or a drug;
(d) to create an offence of operating a motor vehicle with a concentration of alcohol in the blood that exceeds 80 mg of alcohol in 100 mL of blood and causing bodily harm or death to another person;
(e) to clarify what evidence a person accused of driving with a concentration of alcohol in the blood that exceeds 80 mg of alcohol in 100 mL of blood can introduce to raise a doubt that they were not committing the offence;
(f) to create an offence of refusing to provide a breath sample when the accused knows or ought to know that the accused’s operation of a motor vehicle caused an accident resulting in bodily harm to another person or death; and
(g) to increase the penalties for impaired driving.
The enactment also makes consequential amendments to other Acts.

Criminal Code

[Dean Del Mastro, Conservative, Peterborough, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have been listening with great interest to the debate. Quite frankly, I am encouraged to hear the broad-based support that the bill seems to have across all parties.

I am a little concerned about some of what the hon. member from the NDP has indicated. It sounds as if in some ways he questions the capacity of our law enforcement officers to conduct this testing in a manner that would conclude there is impairment, or that he questions whether we could train people in a significant enough fashion that they would be competent to complete this task. I do not agree with that assessment. Certainly when officers have a good deal of experience in dealing with impairment, I think they can judge it fairly.

Perhaps the member could expand a little on why he does not feel that properly trained officers would be competent in addressing whether or not somebody is impaired.

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I will quickly repeat my answer. Perhaps the member did not hear my last comments. I lived through that in the courtroom when we used that methodology. It is exactly the same methodology in terms of evaluating the person's impairment, and at that time, because of alcohol.

What I am saying to the member is that rather than living in the ideological world that the Conservative Party so often lives in, I live in the real world. The real world tells me that the assessment methodology we used 30, 40 or 50 years ago was generally ineffective. I have no reason to believe that it will now be effective against impaired driving because of the consumption of drugs. It did not work on alcohol. I have no particular faith in it working with regard to drugs.

[Robert Thibault, Liberal, West Nova, NS]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure for me to speak on this subject.

I am generally supportive of the bill. What the bill seeks to do for Canadians is very important. We have great concerns in that on a daily basis we see the terrible and tragic accidents throughout our country that are related to the abuse or use of alcohol while operating a motor vehicle.

The use of drugs, controlled substances, while operating a motor vehicle, whether they be prescribed drugs or illegal drugs, is very dangerous. Sometimes, prescribed drugs used improperly or misused or underused, or used to gain recreational effects in some instances, can cause a person to be not fully capable of controlling a motor vehicle, putting themselves and many other people at risk.

We have to applaud any reasonable attempt to make Canadians safer. I think this bill goes a long way toward that, but I do have some concerns. I have some concerns about the general tenor of flooding the House with many so-called crime bills knowing that it is impossible for the committee to do a proper study of all these bills and make the improvements that are needed, because many improvements are needed in these bills, and then being able to say that the House or the committee is stalling.

If we look at what the bill does, we all agree with it, but there are serious problems. I am sure the justice committee will do a serious job to improve the bill and ensure that we meet the intent of the bill and that we have a law that is operational, can work in the Canadian context and assists in protecting Canadians.

Not everything we have been doing to date is bad, but I think the previous speaker has spoken very well about the two beer defence. There are serious attempts in the bill to reduce the types of defences that can be put at court on drinking and driving. That is a positive approach, but we have to make sure they are going to work, and we have to look at other elements within the bill and make sure they meet their commitments and are operable.

I remember a friend of mine telling me that in his days at law school they had a former justice speaking. They asked the justice if he was in favour of capital punishment. He said that no, generally he was not, but he might be in certain instances, probably not for murder, because the majority of the murder cases that he had seen in his courtroom were related to crimes of passion, one time offences that most likely would not be repeated. However, he did say that in the case of drinking and driving and the sale of drugs to minors he might consider it in that aspect, because the people who do these activities know when they enter into them that they are putting people at risk. They are risking lives.

In the case of drinking and driving, when people have that second or third drink before getting into the vehicle, they know they are putting people at risk. They know that it is an illegal activity, that they are reducing their faculties and that they will be putting themselves in a position where they can seriously harm people and kill and maim. We have to take it seriously.

However, this bill goes a little further. I do have some concerns. One is about creating a new offence of operating a motor vehicle while in possession of “a controlled substance as defined in subsection 2(1) of the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act”. We might not disagree with that, but then when we think about it, for example, what are the punishments? Five years' imprisonment is possible. If a 17 year old kid has one cigarette of pot and a gun, he would get a lesser charge for the gun than he would get for that one cigarette of pot, whether or not he smoked it. I do not think that is reasonable. I do not think that has been considered seriously.

If somebody is bringing in a whole bunch of heroin, then there are already crimes for transporting or for possession of controlled substances. Why would it become a different offence for having it in our possession when we are driving as opposed to when we are not driving? Does the possession of that controlled substance, if we have not ingested it, smoked it, injected it or whatever, if we have not depleted our faculties, make us more risky drivers? Are we endangering people? I think that is a serious consideration.

The other element we have to consider is what the risk benefits are. If a person is driving down the road with a controlled substance in his or her possession, the charges that person could face for being in possession of that controlled substance can lead to five years in prison, while the controlled substance charges that person might face for simple possession might lead to six months' probation. Will that person be more apt to attempt a dangerous run from the police? I am looking forward to hearing witnesses on those questions and on whether that is a reasonable approach to be taking in this regard.

The other question I would ask is why there would be a different charge or a different test if a person is driving while in possession of a controlled substance or while in possession of alcohol. If a person has consumed the alcohol, that individual would be facing drinking and driving charges, criminal charges. What if the person has not consumed alcohol but simply has an open bottle in the vehicle, or not open? If the person is 19 years of age, in Nova Scotia the person would face no charges if the bottle is not open, but if it is open, that person could face charges. I believe the fine is $300 or something like that.

But in the bill it becomes different if it is a controlled substance. It becomes criminal. It becomes serious, with up to five years' imprisonment if it is a controlled substance, although it might be one of the less dangerous controlled substances. It could be prescription drugs for someone other than the driver, who might be transporting them for someone else. That would be a controlled substance in that case. I do not think this has been considered very well. There should be some discussion.

The other point is on the drug recognition expert. I had a chance to bring this forward a few minutes ago regarding the question of the applicability. The previous speaker from the NDP, who has a lot of experience in the law, raised some concerns about the test, its validity in court and how it would stand up. I will speak more from an application point of view, not having expertise in the justice system.

We live in a huge country. In rural Canada, the RCMP is our primary policing agency.

I should say before I get too far that I will be sharing my time with the member for Welland.

The RCMP does the policing. Let us imagine that at one o'clock in the morning RCMP officers intercept a motor vehicle and believe that the person may have been using a controlled substance. If it is about drinking and driving, it is quite simple and clear as to how the officers would continue. The structures are in place for it. However, they may believe the person has smoked marijuana. The officers have had training or they have not. If they have not, they have to bring that person into contact with somebody who has had the training, a drug recognition expert, in the language of this bill.

A lot of detachments have three or four RCMP officers. Some have fewer. They can be 500 or 600 miles apart or 200 or 300 miles apart from one another. Typically, RCMP detachments are not open or staffed 24 hours a day, so the nearest drug recognition expert in an area like western Nova Scotia with a population of 130,000 could be three or four hours' drive away, if there is one is on duty during those hours. One has to first find a drug recognition expert and then get the driver in the expert's presence in a reasonable time so he or she can assess the effect or presence of drugs.

In that instance, if the drug recognition expert administers the test and believes reasonably that the person has used marijuana, that person then has to be brought to another expert who will extract bodily fluid, saliva, blood or whatever is required. Again, that person requires training. That person may or may not be available.

In certain parts of the country, the health system may or may not be able to take care of those things, but the distances may be long. We could be talking about a person who is completely innocent but who, because of misjudgments, is held for two, four or eight hours, is not able to do whatever activity he or she was going to, whether it was work or another activity, and is in very difficult circumstances. That is from the citizen's point of view.

If we look at it from the RCMP's point of view, the administrative burden would be huge. It would mean the RCMP would need to have a multitude of these experts in all detachments, or reasonably close by, on an operational basis for 24 hours a day. When we talk about another 1,000 RCMP officers for Canada, that will not do it. That is not enough. We will need a lot more. As well, if we look at the cost to the provinces of doing this, we can see that it is very high.

However, I do want to repeat that I support the principle of this bill. I think we have to find a way of doing it. We have to find the technology and do the research in a way that allows us, as we do with the breathalyzer, to assess these individuals in a way that would stand up in a court of law.

I see that I have run out of time. I went through two of ten items, but I know that my colleagues will discuss the others.

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake, MB]

Mr. Speaker, one thing my friend from West Nova was asking was why we are treating controlled substances differently than open liquor or impaired driving because of alcohol consumption. It is because they are still illegal substances and one can be criminally charged with their possession. It is for that very reason there will be harsher penalties if one is driving under the influence of drugs or is in the possession of drugs while driving. That is the very logic behind it. I think all Canadians get it and want to see this bill move forward.

There is one point the member made on which I kind of agree with him. Some of us represent large rural ridings that have police forces that are fairly scattered and far away from the city centres where some of the experts would be. I am encouraging the government, and I know that Parliament is looking at this, to make sure that any of these people who are trained in drug enforcement and in evaluating whether or not people are under the influence of controlled substances be more readily available in some of the local detachments or in centralized areas where we can have that expertise available to us in a timely fashion.

[Robert Thibault, Liberal, West Nova, NS]

Mr. Speaker, on the question of the possession of controlled substances, the member has missed some very important details.

If we look at the controlled substances in Canadian law, there are schedules. There are some that have different variations. We do not look at the penalties for possession, distribution or use of marijuana in the same way as we do for crack cocaine, crystal meth, or heroin. They are dealt with in codes. They are dealt with at different levels with different punitive measures.

Here it refers to possession of controlled substances. We are not talking about the other areas where it is already illegal to possess them. We are saying that having them in one's possession while driving, whether or not one has used them while driving, could involve up to another five years' punishment.

In this case, the substance may not be a controlled substance because it could be an illegal substance but not prescribed to that person. That person could be bringing it for someone else.

There are many details that we have to seriously look at in this bill. I believe the justice committee will do a good job. I am encouraging it to do so. I will support this bill at this reading so that the justice committee can hear from the experts and look at how to improve this bill to make it operable and help improve the lives and safety of Canadians.

[Lui Temelkovski, Liberal, Oak Ridges—Markham, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I heard the hon. member mention that he had a number of issues that he had wanted to raise but that he had only brought up about five.

I am interested in hearing more about the pressing issues in his riding, as they are in my riding, when it comes to driving impaired and young people driving offensively.

[Robert Thibault, Liberal, West Nova, NS]

Mr. Speaker, there is a larger problem. With the information and public education provided by organizations like Mothers Against Drunk Driving, the risks of drinking and driving are well understood. If we look at the punishments that are now in place for young drivers, it is not a picnic. In Nova Scotia, for a person 17 or 18 years old who is caught with a blood alcohol level over the legal limit, number one is the loss of his or her licence for a year and number two is the difficulty in getting the licence back. Getting the full licence back takes over two years, plus, at that point, the person has to redo all the courses, which is a very expensive process, about $500 or $600. Acquiring insurance at that point is going to be around $5,000 for the average vehicle for a person 18 years of age.

There are punitive measures, plus a criminal record. If that person is interested in a career, he or she will have to face the fact that he or she has a criminal record and that society considers it to be very serious. There is no excuse anymore for drinking and driving. People consider it to be one of the most serious offences one can make.

I commend the organizations that are working out there. Again I will support this bill, but I do not think we should give the false perception that people get an easy ride now.

[Rick Dykstra, Conservative, St. Catharines, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the fine member for Peterborough.

It is a pleasure to speak to Bill C-32. It is an important piece of legislation that will close some serious holes in our impaired driving laws.

In 2003 impaired driving cost our society $10.5 billion, but there were other more significant costs. In that same year impaired driving took the lives of 1,200 Canadians and over 47,000 Canadians were injured, many of them very seriously. That is more than three people killed and over 125 injured every single day. How do we put a price tag on that? I strongly believe that we can prevent many of these tragedies in the future and it certainly is our duty to try. The legislation introduced today will give police and prosecutors the tools they need to rid our streets of drunk and drugged drivers. Let me begin by discussing the drugged drivers.

In researching this issue I was terrified by the statistics relating to teen drugged driving. According to a 2005 report on drug use by Ontario students, almost 20% of all student drivers reported driving after smoking marijuana. By grade 12 that figure is over 25% and they are not driving alone; 22% of all high school students from grade 9 to grade 12 reported that within the last year, they had been a passenger in a car driven by someone who smoked marijuana.

Of course, it is not just teenagers. A Senate report in 2002 found that between 5% and 12% of all drivers may drive while high. Drugged driving is obviously a very serious problem and as of right now, law enforcement is all but powerless to stop it. Police officers' hands are almost completely tied when it comes to collecting evidence. As Sergeant Brian Bowman of Toronto explained to CBC News:

If we see someone driving erratically, we really have a high hill to climb to prove it's from drug-impaired driving. We almost need the smoke to waft out of the car or have the pills fall out onto the road.

The police cannot even demand a physical sobriety test. This legislation will close that loophole. With this legislation police will now be able to request the performance of a roadside standardized field sobriety test when there is reasonable suspicion that a driver has a drug in his or her body.

They will also be able to demand a drug recognition expert evaluation to be performed at the police station. The DREE system has worked well outside Canada and it will work well here as well. Failure to comply with these demands will be considered an offence under the Criminal Code, just like refusing to take a breathalyzer test. A final deterrent to drug impaired driving will be added by making it a criminal offence to be in control of a motor vehicle while in possession of a controlled substance.

Now let me turn to the drunk drivers. Drunk driving was once winked at, but no longer. Today everyone recognizes that it is a deadly, serious problem. OPP Commissioner Julian Fantino has noted that the leading cause of criminal death in my home province of Ontario is not murder, it is drunk driving.

In my community, I had the opportunity to sit down with members of the Niagara Regional Police Service, to work with local MADD organizations and to meet on a number of occasions with their communications and public relations person, Chris George. In 2003 the Niagara Regional Police Service arrested 28 people during its month long holiday RIDE program. The Niagara OPP laid 99 charges of impaired driving in 2006 alone. The number in my riding continues to increase.

Drugged and drunk driving is listed as one of the top three justice concerns for the people of my community. This bill delivers on that concern. Bill C-32 toughens penalties for drunk drivers and helps prosecutors secure the convictions that are needed to keep the roads safe for responsible drivers.

We have strengthened the mandatory minimum penalties for first, second and third offences. The maximum penalty for impaired driving causing bodily harm will now be 10 years, and for causing death it will be life imprisonment. This is simply the right thing to do.

Our bill will help prosecutors get convictions. When prosecuting drunk drivers, the crown has objective scientific evidence from approved instruments that measure blood alcohol content.

In the 2005 case of R. v. Boucher, the Supreme Court ruled that the credibility of such testimony cannot be called into question by breathalyzer results, not even if someone blew more than twice the legal limit.

The two beers defence is a joke. Testimony from one's drinking buddies should not be allowed to distort objective scientific measures.

Getting this legislation passed should not be a partisan fight. In fact, in 1999 a Liberal dominated justice committee released a report on the issue. The committee's recommendations included the following: allowing imprisonment for life following conviction for impaired driving causing death; allowing for a maximum of 10 years' imprisonment where an accident causes bodily harm; and authorizing the taking of a blood sample for the purposes of testing for the presence of alcohol or drugs based on reasonable and probable grounds. Those were all good ideas agreed to by the Liberal MPs but good ideas nonetheless.

In 2003 the Department of Justice released a consultation document on the issue noting that drug recognition expert programs had been successfully implemented in many American jurisdictions. It was a very good point.

Bill C-32 will protect Canadians from impaired drivers. I encourage all members to support it. We have the opportunity to reach across all party lines and put forward legislation that is tough, that is fair, that is right and that is current with what is happening in jurisdictions around the world.

[Lui Temelkovski, Liberal, Oak Ridges—Markham, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I listened attentively to the member, who made some good points. I would like to ask him a question with regard to drug recognition.

In my previous career in the insurance and investment business, we did a lot of medicals. The medicals could detect the presence of drugs in a person many months prior to taking the medical.

Could the member be more definitive on the way this will be tested? What amounts are being looked at in the bill for drunk driving as well as drug intoxication?

[Rick Dykstra, Conservative, St. Catharines, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am not sure exactly what the member was asking.

However, in specific relation to driving while under the influence of drugs, currently there is no opportunity for the police or for any crown prosecutors to be able to convict anyone of a drug related driving offence. Bill C-32 creates a platform and an opportunity in three specific areas to do that. One is suspicion, two is possession, and obviously the third relies upon the fact that they will be able to use a standardized test that is used in many other jurisdictions in North America. They will go to the police station and under reasonable suspicion the individual will be tested and evaluated to see if in fact the individual is under the influence of a drug or certainly has driven under the influence of a drug.

[Dean Del Mastro, Conservative, Peterborough, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to join this debate and speak in favour of Bill C-32, a bill that amends the Criminal Code in relation to impaired driving.

A great deal has already been said about the provisions of the bill. I do not wish to go over the same ground. Instead, I want to focus on some of the objections to the legislation that have appeared in the media regarding the bill.

First, there have been some who question whether the bill is constitutional with respect to the drug impaired driving provisions of the bill. I remind the House that this was extensively canvassed when Bill C-16 was considered.

Of course, no government will present to the House legislation that it considers is going to violate the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, unless it is convinced that the bill will be upheld as a reasonable limit on those rights. The previous government obviously considered the bill charter compliant or it would not have introduced Bill C-16.

When Bill C-16 was in committee, the then minister of justice, a well known human rights advocate, in his opening remarks on the bill addressed the issue of charter compliance. He said:

Let me deal for a moment with some charter considerations. We know that the demands for alcohol breath tests on approved screening devices at roadside, without a right to contact counsel, have been found justifiable by the courts under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, pursuant to the section 1 demonstrable justification limitation on a right.

The right to counsel must be given following the demand for an alcohol breath test on an approved instrument back at the station and before the approved instrument testing is done.

I anticipate that the same practice would prevail for the DRE evaluations envisaged under Bill C-16. With Bill C-16, we have tried to closely parallel the grounds that our prerequisites for making alcohol breath test demand. I believe that Bill C-16 offers good and important solutions that will be found justifiable under the charter.

Later, in response to a question he went further:

No, I think the court would apply the generic approach with respect to whether a limit on a right is justifiable under the circumstances, and then they would go into the four-part proportionality test.

They would ask themselves, is there a pressing and substantial objective? They would come to the conclusion, in my view, that there is a substantial and pressing objective, which is of course, at the bottom line, the saving of lives.

They would then look to see whether the means chosen were appropriate for the purpose or objective sought to be secured, as the other part of the proportionality test. I think the court would conclude here that this is a proportional remedy for the objective sought to be secured.

I believe the House can be assured that the requirement that a driver perform standard field sobriety tests at the roadside which are relatively brief will be upheld in the same way the roadside screening for alcohol has been upheld.

Similarly, the tests back at the station which will be performed by a trained officer are analogous to the test on an approved instrument.

I know many, if not most, members of the House would like to have an instrument that would measure quickly the concentration of various drugs just like the approved instruments that measure blood alcohol concentration.

The technology simply does not exist and, until it does, we will have to rely on various tests such as the reaction of the eyes to light, blood pressure, pulse and muscle tone on which the trained officer bases his opinion of which drug or combination of drugs and alcohol has caused the impairment. That opinion has to be validated by finding the drug in the person when bodily fluid is sampled.

Another objection to the proposed legislation's constitutionality was made by the president of the Ottawa Defence Lawyers Association reported in the Globe and Mail. He objected to the proposed offence of refusing to provide a breath sample when a person has been involved in a crash which will be punished in the same way as impaired driving causing bodily harm or death. He said:

There is no connection between the fact that you refuse to provide bodily substances and the accident itself. If you refuse, you have no defence.

When a person is charged with impaired driving causing death or bodily harm, the Crown has to establish the impairment and that the driving caused the accident.

The new offence will require the Crown to prove the refusal and then prove that the driver knew or ought to have known that he or she had caused an accident that had caused death or bodily harm.

This offence is modelled on the offence of failure to stop at the scene of an accident. The mental element is the intention to frustrate the police investigation.

In the case of flight, the person simply tries to avoid the police. In the case of refusal, the person refuses to provide a breath sample, the breath sample evidence necessary to determine whether the person was over .08 or in the case of a drug the person refuses to perform the test or to provide the bodily sample to determine whether the drug is actually present in the body.

Of course, in most accident situations the person will be well aware that there has been an accident. The police will still have to have reason to suspect the person has alcohol or drug in their system before making the demand.

Finally, I note that some of the users of medical marijuana claim that this legislation is aimed at them and will prevent them from driving their cars.

Russell Barth, quoted in the Edmonton Sun and other newspapers and described as a medical marijuana user and member of the National Capital Reformers, said that, “Discriminating against us based on our medication is much like discriminating against us based on the colour of our skin”.

In fact, medical marijuana users will be treated like other persons who take prescribed and over the counter drugs. People take all kinds of drugs for legitimate medical reasons. The question is whether they are impaired by that drug. If they can take their medicine and still pass the standard field sobriety test, they can drive. If they cannot, then they had better find someone to drive them around.

The offence of driving while in possession of an illicit drug also specifically provides that the person must be doing so without legitimate excuse. Clearly, persons who have been admitted to the medical marijuana scheme have a legitimate excuse to transport a supply of marijuana with them and would not be caught by this new offence.

I believe the bill is a balanced response to a very serious problem. I believe it is in fact long overdue. The minister in his speech made it clear that the government was prepared to consider any amendments that will strengthen the bill that the standing committee may suggest after hearing from witnesses.

I urge the members to give the bill second reading. I also urge the standing committee, which has a heavy workload, to give this bill priority. It will undoubtedly save thousands of Canadians from being injured or killed by impaired drivers.

[Lui Temelkovski, Liberal, Oak Ridges—Markham, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the member if there is any percentage increase in the number of convictions that are expected that he is aware of from the bill. What is the percentage increase of convictions that is expected and are there any figures that he has in terms of sentencing that will stem directly from the bill?

[Dean Del Mastro, Conservative, Peterborough, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am not aware of any specific percentage. However, I am aware that the bill will specifically prohibit the defence called the two beer defence. Quite frankly this defence should not exist. I know that this defence actually circumvents the intent of our impaired driving laws that currently exist.

When persons bring in a few of their buddies who have been drinking with them, and have them testify that they only drank two beers and therefore could not possibly be impaired, that is not a defence that should be credible before the eyes of the court and not something that Canadians should accept.

I cannot speak to exact percentages, but when I speak to law enforcement officials, when I speak to representatives of MADD Canada, and when I speak to victims of drunk driving, they cannot believe that a defence like that exists in Canada. They want it gone. They want the perpetrators, the people who repeatedly drive impaired, brought to justice. That is why everyone should support the bill.

[Carole Freeman, Bloc, Châteauguay—Saint-Constant, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to take part today in the debate on Bill C-32, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (impaired driving), which is now before the House. This bill offers us an opportunity to look into a serious problem in society, one that is often in the headlines. We all know that drunk driving is an irresponsible act. A lot of preventive work is being done, in fact, to reduce the occurrence of this phenomenon. Unfortunately, there are still incidents in which an individual who is driving while impaired takes the lives of people on our roads, including, very sadly, young children.

Bill C-32 is therefore meant to respond to this situation by providing the police with tools to make their job easier when it comes to gathering evidence for laying a charge against an impaired driver. More specifically, it is aimed at people driving under the influence of drugs, such as marijuana.

The impaired driving problem goes back years, if not decades. A number of studies have considered the question and suggested ways in which the problem can be addressed. I would note that in 1999, the Standing Committee on Justice submitted the report entitled “Toward Eliminating Impaired Driving”, in which it was recognized that drugs could be a cause of accidents and that we had to find better methods of detecting them. It also stated that we had to improve the process of gathering evidence to allow for people driving under the influence of drugs to be prosecuted.

At that time, the committee identified two major obstacles: first, the absence of a clear definition of what constitutes “reasonable grounds”, the basis on which a police officer administers a test to a driver to detect drugs; and second, the apparent lack of a single non-invasive test for detecting drugs. Given the relative difficulty of the tests that have to be done, the committee suggested that the Charter implications of testing be taken into account. One of the recommendations made in the report was that blood samples be taken if the police officer had “reasonable grounds” for doing so.

The obstacles identified by the committee were also recognized by the Senate committee, which proposed at the time that more studies be done of the driving habits of drivers under the influence of drugs, a reliable and rapid testing tool be developed, and the blood alcohol level be lowered.

Four years later, the Minister of Justice issued a study report that came out of the recommendations of the Standing Committee on Justice. The study, entitled “Drug-Impaired Driving: Consultation Document”, suggested finding a legislative way of compelling drivers to take screening tests administered by police officers.

To that end, the document suggested setting a legal limit for drugs and legislating to allow police to administer a screening test. An expert on site could, with “reasonable grounds”, administer a test on the offending driver and then, if the test was positive, investigate further by taking a bodily fluid sample. The results would have been given by another expert to the closest police station. The tests and police testimony would be used as evidence to charge the driver.

However, the document stresses the importance of considering the Charter in legislating to amend the Criminal Code with regard to requests for bodily fluid samples and the offending driver's rights to consult a lawyer. Bill C-32, which the Liberals introduced on April 26, 2004, addressed these concerns, but died on the order paper in May 2004 when the election was called.

Reintroduced as C-16 in November 2004, the bill again died on the order paper a year later. The new Bill C-32, which happens to have the same number as the original and was introduced by the Conservative government, contains essentially the same provisions but, for ideological reasons, increases penalties for drivers found guilty of impaired driving.

I know that all the members of this House recognize that impaired driving remains one of the criminal offences most likely to cause death or injury to others. As I explained earlier, this is the third time this bill has been introduced in order to deal with the problem of impaired driving.

The Conservative bill is similar to the old Bill C-16 tabled in the previous Parliament. In short, it suggests the following three things. First, it would require people suspected of driving under the influence to take an alcohol or drug test ordered by police officers at the arrest site, that is to say, at the side of the road. Second, it authorizes experts to take samples of bodily fluids, something that is not in the current Criminal Code. Refusal to comply would constitute a criminal offence, just like refusal to take a breathalyser test. Third, the bill would limit the evidence that can be introduced in court to cast doubt on the way the breathalyser was used or the results of the blood alcohol tests.

This is often called the “two beer” defence, where the accused states that he or she had consumed only one or a particular number of drinks over a certain period of time and therefore could not possibly have had a blood alcohol reading as high as what the test said.

The government also wants to stiffen the sentences and introduce life imprisonment instead of five years for infractions causing the death of another person. To that are added the fines that are adjusted to reflect the number of repeat offences by the driver in question: $1,000 for a first offence instead of $600; 30 days in custody for a second offence instead of 14 days, and 120 days in custody for a third offence instead of 90 days.

I am deputy justice critic and, like our party, I think that this is a very important bill because it is intended to provide the tools that the police need to fight the impaired driving problem effectively. However, it is essential for us to review certain points in the bill because the proposed additions should be studied in order to determine whether they really will be effective.

In the course of the work of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights, I would like to meet with experts and groups to shed light on the following concerns about which I want to inform the House—

[The Speaker, Peter Milliken]

I am very sorry to interrupt the hon. member in the middle of her speech but it is now 2 o’clock and we need to go on to members’ statements. The hon. member will have 13 minutes to finish her speech later.