Bill C-373 (Historical)

Federal Framework on Distracted Driving Act

An Act respecting a federal framework on distracted driving

This enactment provides for the development of a federal framework to deter and prevent distracted driving. It also sets out consultation, review and reporting requirements in relation to the framework.

National Impaired Driving Prevention Week

[Jim Eglinski, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to compliment my colleague across the aisle for a very heart-wrenching speech, one that came from his heart and involved a lot of people. He was correct when he said that every time there is an accident when someone is killed by an impaired driver, this is not the only victim. There are also the victims who have to live on. I thank the member. It was a great story.

I am pleased to rise in the House to speak to Motion No.148, which would establish a national impaired driving prevention week. As members know, I spent 35 years as an RCMP officer. As an emergency responder, I have personally witnessed the prevalence and impacts of impaired driving. I attended too many fatal MVAs directly related to impaired driving. I even had the occasion once to charge an individual with a Breathalyzer reading six times over the legal limit. It was scary. He was not supposed to be walking.

I am grateful that this motion has been put forward, and I am pleased to see that it appears to have support from all sides of the House, as it should.

Impaired driving is not a new problem in Canada. It has been recognized by the Criminal Code of Canada since 1921. Despite a sizeable drop in the impaired driving rate since the mid-1980s, it still remains a leading cause of criminal death in Canada. In my own province of Alberta, one in five drivers involved in fatal collisions between 2011 and 2015 had been drinking prior to the collision. In that same period, 389 people were killed and 5,969 people were injured in alcohol-related collisions. These numbers are unacceptable.

In a Statistics Canada survey, one out of 20 drivers in Ontario, Manitoba, Alberta, Yukon, and Nunavut admitted to driving in previous years after consuming two or more drinks in the hour before driving. It is clear that we have a lot of repeat offenders. Out of these individuals, more than three-quarters reported driving impaired on multiple occasions. On one occasion, I remember arresting a person three times in one night for impaired driving. The only way to stop him was to lock him up.

This motion states that the government should recognize the importance of educating Canadians about the consequences of impaired driving, and that is so right. With a good education program, we can get that information out there and lower the statistical data, very much as we did when seat belts came out. A good education program got the message out.

According to the statistics I just shared, 95% of Canadians seem to understand the consequences of drunk driving, but we need to keep educating the public until that number is 100%, because the 5% who keep drinking and driving are doing a lot of damage and permanently changing the lives of thousands of people, as my friend across the way just said.

It is not just alcohol that impairs our driving. Cellphones are a huge distraction on the road. This distraction greatly impacts our ability to drive safely. According to the Canadian Automobile Association, drivers who text are 23 times more likely to be involved in a crash or a near miss. I have witnessed ladies applying makeup, men shaving, and some unmentionable distractions while people were driving.

This motion is well timed with Bill C-373, which I will also be speaking to when it is up for debate later this month. It calls for a national framework to deter and prevent distracted driving, with a focus on hand-held devices.

Distracted driving is a major issue across Canada. The number of deaths caused by distracted drivers is now outpacing the number of deaths caused by drunk drivers in provinces like Ontario and British Columbia. It is imperative that we include distracted driving in our conversations about impaired driving. If this motion passes and we have a national impaired driving prevention week, I would like to see this as part of the conversation each year.

I would also like to see drug-impaired driving as part of this conversation. This is an issue I continue to be very concerned about as the Liberal government pushes to legalize marijuana.

Drug-impaired driving has been increasing every year since 2009. The message about drinking and driving is well known, but people do not fully understand the impact drugs can and will have on their judgment and reaction time when driving.

Studies of vehicle accidents around the world show that the drugs most commonly found in drivers involved in accidents include marijuana, opioids, and cocaine. Each drug affects the brain differently, but almost all impact the user's attention, judgment, motor skills, reaction time, decision-making skills, and coordination.

Public Safety Canada conducted research with Canadians on drug-impaired driving in 2017. It found that 28% of cannabis users have operated a vehicle while under the influence, and one-third of Canadians have ridden in vehicles operated by a driver who was affected by the use of cannabis. Among those who have driven while impaired, almost half downplayed the risks. They either indicated that driving while under the influence of cannabis was less dangerous than driving while under the influence of alcohol, or they believed that driving while under the influence of cannabis posed no real risk to them or anyone else. They are wrong. I have investigated horrific accidents where no liquor was involved but the drivers were high.

These are the attitudes of Canadians, and they need to change, especially as marijuana becomes legal. This is why I support educating Canadians about the dangers of impaired driving. I know there are members here who have personally been impacted by an impaired driver, and we have heard that. Some have lost a friend or family member. The sponsor of this motion almost lost his daughter, a story he shared with the House.

What is even more heartbreaking than his story is the fact that there are thousands more stories like his out there. So many Canadians have been impacted by impaired driving in life-changing ways. This is something that needs to change. From my service as an RCMP officer, some of my worst memories are of motor vehicle accidents: death and mangled bodies. One never forgets.

A national impaired driving prevention week would serve as an annual reminder and education campaign about the very real consequences of driving while impaired, whether by drugs, alcohol, or distractions.

When the sponsor of this motion spoke in November last year, he said that four Canadians die in an impaired driving accident each day. That is too much. If a single life can be saved by this motion, then it is worth supporting. I encourage all members of this House to support Motion No. 148 to help make our roads safer.

[Murray Rankin, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Madam Speaker, I rise today to offer my support and congratulations to the member for Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel for bringing this important initiative before the House of Commons. We will be supporting it enthusiastically.

I understand as well that the motion touches on issues that are quite personal for the member and his family, and I join with the member for Brandon—Souris in expressing my sympathy and solidarity with my colleague.

It is certainly my aim to support all measures that reduce the number of impaired driving accidents in Canada and by doing so, spare families the considerable pain and needless difficulties my hon. colleague and his family endured. Frankly, I would be quite surprised if any of my colleagues in the House would not support the motion. I would hope that despite our political differences, we are all united in our desire for the safety of Canadians.

With respect to criminal justice matters, the NDP supports preventative measures. If we can eliminate behaviours, such as impaired driving that precipitates such terrible outcomes, we can save lives and alleviate the heavy burden on our justice system as well.

Furthermore, I would suggest that awareness campaigns target young people before they are old enough to drive. We must instill in young Canadians the knowledge that impaired driving is extremely dangerous and can have dire consequences. We must teach our youth that it is selfish, reckless, anti-social, and immoral to take these risks with the lives of other Canadians. The sooner Canadians of all ages fully understand the devastating impacts of all forms of impaired driving the faster we can reduce the number of these senseless deaths and injuries.

We have seen that awareness campaigns work. Rates of drinking and driving have gone down significantly since such campaigns were launched. According to Stats Canada data, in 2015, the rate of impaired driving was 201 incidents per 100,000 population. That was the lowest rate since data on impaired driving was first collected in 1986, 4% lower than in 2014. Clearly, we are moving in the right direction.

However, in spite of a decline in impaired driving rates over the past 30 years, impaired driving remains one of the most frequent criminal offences and is among the leading criminal causes of death in Canada.

We have made significant strides forward, but alcohol-impaired driving remains a serious issue in our country. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that Canada had the highest percentage of alcohol-related crash deaths among the 20 high-income countries of the OECD in 2013. This reckless behaviour is unacceptable, given our knowledge about its detrimental effects. One death or serious injury caused by alcohol-impaired driving is one too many.

I had the opportunity, as a member of justice committee, to hear testimony from experts, like Dr. Robert Solomon, during its consideration of Bill C-46. The bill would allow police to administer what are called “mandatory alcohol screening” measures as a way to apprehend all drivers at the stop who are impaired. The bill would allow officers to test every driver at a stop, instead of relying on their subjective discretion, as is currently the case. More people are going to get caught and more people are going to be frightened about being caught. We hope as a result the level of deaths and injuries will go down.

The evidence is unassailable if we look at the European countries. As Dr. Solomon pointed out, this kind of testing will lead to less carnage and mayhem on our roads and highways. He said that when Switzerland enacted mandatory alcohol screening in 2005, the percentage of drivers testing positive for alcohol fell from about 25% to 7.6%. Alcohol-related crash deaths dropped by approximately 25%.

Therefore, along with adopting these sorts of effective practices, we must certainly continue our education campaigns and commitment to support police officers in their work to eliminate alcohol-impaired driving from coast to coast to coast.

I also now want to talk about the misinformation that exists around drug-impaired driving, particularly among Canadian youth. This is very troubling. We all talk about the dangers of impaired driving as if everyone knows it and it is well acknowledged, but there is a lack of awareness about drug-impaired driving among young Canadians, who are still the leading demographic for impaired driving.

It is imperative we take the necessary precautions to ensure Canadians have accurate information. In order to ensure safety, we have to address the misconceptions among young people and some parents that driving stoned, driving under the influence of cannabis, is somehow safer than driving under the influence of alcohol. An alarming percentage of youth actually do not think drugs impair their ability to drive, which of course is categorically false.

A document published by the Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse and Addiction addresses this persistent misconception head on. Here is what it says:

The challenge is many youth do not consider driving under the influence of marijuana to be risky, unlike driving under the influence of alcohol. Some youth even believe that using marijuana makes them better drivers, but evidence clearly shows that it impairs driving ability.... [M]ore awareness campaigns that centre on youth are needed to deter them from driving while impaired, especially after using marijuana.

The idea that somehow driving stoned is going make someone a better driver is out there and it is a very dangerous idea, so one hopes the government will take the necessary educational measures to increase awareness of this problem.

Nearly one-third of teens do not consider driving under the influence of cannabis to be as bad as driving under the influence of alcohol. That comes from a national study by Partnership for a Drug-Free Canada.

Nearly 25% of parents of teenagers did not consider driving while high on cannabis to be as bad as drinking and driving.

I hope that, by dedicating the third week of March as national impaired driving prevention week, we can reach primarily young people. The timing coincides nicely with spring break in most provinces, and a little reminder about impaired driving at that time is obviously a good thing.

In addition to discussions around alcohol and drug impairment, I understand that Bill C-373 has been brought forward to address distracted driving. According to researchers Robertson, Bowman, and Charles: “In some provinces, distracted driving has reportedly been the cause of even more car accidents than impaired driving.”

With the exception of Nunavut, all provinces and territories currently have their own laws on distracted driving. Ultimately, it is up to the provincial jurisdiction to determine how we are going to implement these laws.

I wish to reiterate, in conclusion, that the NDP is entirely supportive of measures that prevent tragedies that result from impaired driving. If we can educate Canadians about the extreme dangers of all forms of impaired driving, we can reduce the number of people who are doing this and avoid future tragedies for Canadians.