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

This bill was last introduced in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session, which ended in September 2019.

Sponsor

Status

This bill has received Royal Assent and is now law.

Summary

This is from the published bill. The Library of Parliament often publishes better independent summaries.

Part 1 amends the provisions of the Criminal Code that deal with offences and procedures relating to drug-impaired driving. Among other things, the amendments
(a) enact new criminal offences for driving with a blood drug concentration that is equal to or higher than the permitted concentration;
(b) authorize the Governor in Council to establish blood drug concentrations; and
(c) authorize peace officers who suspect a driver has a drug in their body to demand that the driver provide a sample of a bodily substance for analysis by drug screening equipment that is approved by the Attorney General of Canada.
Part 2 repeals the provisions of the Criminal Code that deal with offences and procedures relating to conveyances, including those provisions enacted by Part 1, and replaces them with provisions in a new Part of the Criminal Code that, among other things,
(a) re-enact and modernize offences and procedures relating to conveyances;
(b) authorize mandatory roadside screening for alcohol;
(c) establish the requirements to prove a person’s blood alcohol concentration; and
(d) increase certain maximum penalties and certain minimum fines.
Part 3 contains coordinating amendments and the coming into force provision.

Elsewhere

All sorts of information on this bill is available at LEGISinfo, an excellent resource from the Library of Parliament. You can also read the full text of the bill.

Votes

Oct. 31, 2017 Passed 3rd reading and adoption of Bill C-46, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (offences relating to conveyances) and to make consequential amendments to other Acts
Oct. 25, 2017 Passed Concurrence at report stage of Bill C-46, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (offences relating to conveyances) and to make consequential amendments to other Acts
Oct. 25, 2017 Failed Bill C-46, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (offences relating to conveyances) and to make consequential amendments to other Acts (report stage amendment)

Criminal CodeGovernment Orders

May 31st, 2017 / 4 p.m.
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NDP

Don Davies NDP Vancouver Kingsway, BC

Mr. Speaker, I have two questions.

One is that we are aware that there are some challenges with respect to testing for the presence of THC in the active bloodstream. We know that there are tests that can determine what are called the metabolites of THC. Because THC is very fat-soluble, the THC stays in the fat and then it is slowly released. Therefore, we can test the breakdown products of THC, but that is not necessarily an indicator of present impairment.

The second aspect of the question is that for people who are prescribed medicinal cannabis and are chronic users of THC, research has shown that they may have elevated levels of THC in their saliva but not be impaired.

Does my hon. colleague have any comments on how the legislation may deal with those challenges?

Criminal CodeGovernment Orders

May 31st, 2017 / 4 p.m.
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Liberal

Chris Bittle Liberal St. Catharines, ON

Mr. Speaker, again, I am looking forward to hearing the evidence from scientists, but my understanding is that the saliva-based test for people impaired by cannabis does show recent usage of cannabis. The roadside test is not dealing with fat-soluble concentrations of THC. It is saliva-based so that would show immediate or recent usage.

In terms of medicinal cannabis, if we look at other drugs, whether opioids or other types of drugs that would impair, people still should not get behind the wheel. If they are impaired, they are impaired whether it is prescribed as a medicine or not. It does not matter if it is a drug like an opioid or if it is cannabis; there will be scientific tests to determine whether an individual is impaired by a drug and should not be behind the wheel.

Criminal CodeGovernment Orders

May 31st, 2017 / 4 p.m.
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NDP

Anne Minh-Thu Quach NDP Salaberry—Suroît, QC

Mr. Speaker, CAA has asked the government to launch a public awareness and education campaign before marijuana is legalized, but the government has not yet done so.

Can my colleague tell me when the government plans to work on this aspect of prevention, which is impaired driving?

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May 31st, 2017 / 4 p.m.
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Liberal

Chris Bittle Liberal St. Catharines, ON

Mr. Speaker, I know my friend, the hon. Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice, has done incredible work travelling the country, including coming to St. Catharines and speaking to members of the community and speaking to key individuals such as our chief of police, head of fire services, municipal officials, and those in education. The public education campaign is ongoing and the parliamentary secretary is well behind it.

I know that the Prime Minister has discussed that the proceeds of cannabis would be used for public education, and this government stands behind it. This is ultimately a public safety and public health bill, so public education on cannabis and its usage is important.

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May 31st, 2017 / 4 p.m.
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Liberal

Linda Lapointe Liberal Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak to a subject that has admittedly attracted a lot of attention in recent days, weeks, and months.

Obviously, the legalization of cannabis, or marijuana, was a hot but sensitive topic during the election campaign, and so it is important to open a dialogue with Quebeckers and Canadians to discuss it.

As a mother of four children, two girls and two boys, aged 17 to 25, I am well aware of the arguments for and against the legalization of cannabis. However, one thing is certain. We need to reconsider our current approach.

As part of its commitment, our government recognizes that the existing approach is not working and seems outdated. The rate of cannabis use among young people is higher in Canada than anywhere else in the world. That is not an enviable record, even though we are, as the Right Hon. Jean Chrétien was fond of saying, “the best country in the world”. I truly believe that.

In 2015, the rate of cannabis use was 21% among young people aged 15 to 19 and 30% among adults aged 20 to 24. In other words, one in three people use cannabis on a regular basis. If we add in the people who use it occasionally, the number only increases. Obviously, our bill addresses a real problem. It will protect our children from drugs and from the underground network that supplies them.

Recently, our government introduced two bills to carry out and complete the legalization of cannabis and the associated regulations. However, many people only want to hear the first term, namely, legalization.

When I talk to people in my riding of Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, very few of them are aware of the second bill, Bill C-46, an Act to amend the Criminal Code (offences relating to conveyances) and to make consequential amendments to other acts.

In other words, this bill seeks to make several amendments to the Criminal Code to address cannabis-impaired driving. The prohibition on cannabis must be lifted safely, everywhere, and in every sector of our society, including on our roads.

Unfortunately, impaired driving is the leading criminal cause of death and injury in Canada. That is why our government is committed to enacting new, more stringent laws, to punish people who drive under the influence of drugs, including cannabis, more severely.

I firmly believe that enacting this bill will deter people from getting behind the wheel when they are under the influence of drugs or alcohol.

The media often tend to say that it is our young people who are more reckless and who drive while impaired. However, I know that my children and their friends do not consider impaired driving, or not having a plan for getting home, to be even remotely cool. In fact, most of the time, young people and those who are not so young already have a plan for getting home. This is an approach that I strongly encourage. There are also many alternatives available now, including drive-home services, taxis, public transit, ride-sharing, parents, and so forth.

This bill has two parts. In part 1, the amendments proposed in Bill C-46 include a new legal limit for drug-related offences and new tools to allow for better detection of impaired drivers.

To make it all possible, the bill provides for the use of roadside screening devices using oral fluid samples. This is a first in Canada when it comes to drug screening. This type of device is already used in a number of countries, including the G7 countries, such as France.

As we speak, the police have few if any ways of immediately determining the blood concentration of THC, the active ingredient in cannabis, for drivers stopped at the roadside.

We must take action, and bill C-46 will enable police officers who legally stop drivers at the side of the road to ask them to provide an oral fluid sample, if they have reasonable suspicions and believe that drugs are present in a driver’s body.

A positive reading would then help establish reasonable grounds to believe that an offence had been committed. This is an important key measure in the legalization and strict regulation of cannabis.

This important bill will allow an officer who has reasonable grounds to believe that an offence has been committed to contact an “evaluating officer”. The “evaluating officer” will then conduct an evaluation of the drug use by taking a blood sample. Next, the bill will create three new offences based on specified levels of a drug in a person’s blood within two hours after driving.

Obviously, the penalties would depend on the drug type and the levels or the combination of drugs and alcohol. These offences will be considered on the basis of the levels of active ingredients in the blood, but will also be harsher and will be “hybrid offences” where a driver has a combination of alcohol and cannabis. For example, a hybrid offence will be punishable by a mandatory fine of $1,000 and the penalty will escalate, including days of imprisonment for repeat offenders.

In part 2, Bill C-46 would reform the entire Criminal Code regime dealing with conveyances and create a new, modern system that is simplified and more coherent, in order to better prevent alcohol- or drug-impaired driving. In other words, this part of the bill provides for mandatory roadside alcohol screening, increases in minimum fines and certain maximum penalties, and a host of measures to simplify and update the existing law.

In conclusion, I have full confidence in Bill C-46, and that the coherent, clear, and sufficiently coercive measures it contains will make our roads safer for everyone. Obviously, to support these measures, our government will undertake a robust public awareness campaign, so that Canadians are well informed about the dangers of driving under the influence of cannabis or other drugs. I am also committed to doing that in my community of Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, to educate people and raise their awareness, to ensure that there is good communication, and to work on prevention with young people and the public as a whole.

Criminal CodeGovernment Orders

May 31st, 2017 / 4:10 p.m.
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NDP

Anne Minh-Thu Quach NDP Salaberry—Suroît, QC

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for her speech. Much has been said about prevention and giving the police the tools they need to detect the presence of marijuana in saliva, but to do that, we would also have to know what quantity of THC we want to detect and have good devices that will detect it. However, this does not seem to be the case at present.

Will the Liberals ensure that the police have these tools and do not arrest people who are not necessarily under the influence of marijuana and are not impaired?

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May 31st, 2017 / 4:10 p.m.
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Liberal

Linda Lapointe Liberal Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC

Mr. Speaker, I know that the member asked my colleague this question a little earlier. She wanted to know more about prevention and how the presence of THC was going to be detected.

As I said earlier, if the police have reasonable grounds to believe that an offence has been committed, they will be able to require that a driver give an oral fluid sample. If the reading is positive, the driver will have to give a blood sample to an evaluating officer. Obviously, the THC levels my colleague is referring to will have to be determined by scientists.

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May 31st, 2017 / 4:10 p.m.
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Conservative

Todd Doherty Conservative Cariboo—Prince George, BC

Mr. Speaker, I have a couple of questions. I am on record already a number of times saying that I am all for stricter drinking and driving and impairment laws, as someone who lost a loved one 20 years ago this year. However, the questions need to be answered. The costs will be downloaded to our municipalities and to our police forces for this equipment and for training to give our police forces the capacity to accurately administer these tests, even though the science behind them is still imprecise and there are too many false positives.

In passing this piece of legislation, is the government also committing to giving additional resources to the municipalities and police forces that will be responsible for paying for this process?

Criminal CodeGovernment Orders

May 31st, 2017 / 4:15 p.m.
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Liberal

Linda Lapointe Liberal Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his very important question.

The legislation will be passed by July 1, 2018, at the latest. The provinces will definitely have to pass their own legislation as a result.

In 2015, there were 72,000 impaired-driving incidents, 3,000 of which involved drugs. We therefore need to adjust our laws, because currently we have nothing that covers drugs specifically. We cannot force drivers to submit to testing. That is what our bill does.

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May 31st, 2017 / 4:15 p.m.
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NDP

Romeo Saganash NDP Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, QC

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for her presentation.

I am extremely concerned about several aspects of this bill, particularly the need to educate people, especially young people, about the consequences of marijuana use. We need greater emphasis on this in our society.

Another aspect also worries me. Ever since this government announced it would legalize marijuana, we have been seeing greenhouses pop up in various indigenous communities for growing marijuana.

I would like the hon. member to comment on these issues, which are just as important as some of the other aspects or dimensions of this bill.

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May 31st, 2017 / 4:15 p.m.
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Liberal

Linda Lapointe Liberal Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague.

I am rising today to speak to Bill C-46 because it is very important. I think that people always talk about legalization, but not about regulation. In my opinion, it is very important to provide a framework for this aspect.

We are talking about impairment, but my colleague also mentioned cannabis production. To grow cannabis, people must obtain a licence by following a process that will be similar to the one for the production of a new medication. There are strict regulations and there will be many rules.

I stated earlier that as the mother of four children, I see a lot of young people come to my home. It is very important to me that they know what could happen if they consumed drugs or alcohol and decided to drive.

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May 31st, 2017 / 4:15 p.m.
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Liberal

Yasmin Ratansi Liberal Don Valley East, ON

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge.

Mr. Speaker, I am proud to rise today at second reading of Bill C-46, which deals with driving while under the influence of alcohol or drugs.

In all our ridings, impaired driving upends lives, devastates families, and ravages communities. While the rate of impaired driving has been on the decline since the 1980s in most of Canada, it is still a cause for concern. For example, Saskatchewan has the highest per capita rate of any province, with 575 incidents per 100,000 people in 2015. That rate is more than double in the Yukon and the Northwest Territories.

While the vast majority of impaired driving incidents in Canada involve alcohol, drug-impaired driving has been on the rise since 2009. In 2015, Canadian police reported some 3,000 incidents of people driving while under the influence of drugs. In 2015, there were more than 72,000 impaired driving incidents, including 3,000 drug-impaired driving incidents. In other words, drug-impaired driving is not a new phenomenon, and the measures in place in recent years have not stopped the problem from getting worse.

Drug-impaired driving has been a criminal offence since 1925. Front-line officials across the country have made repeated calls to treat it as a more serious criminal offence, to create accurate and reliable testing tools, and to improve public education on the dangers of driving while impaired. Our approach, through this bill, will do the same.

To begin with, Bill C-46 would amend the Criminal Code to provide police with the authority to use roadside drug screeners. In practice, this is how it would work. A police officer would conduct a traffic stop under his or her authority. The officer could form a reasonable suspicion, which could be determined from several factors, including red eyes, the odour of an impairing substance, or abnormal speech patterns. If there were reasonable grounds to suspect drugs in the body, at that point the police officer would be authorized to demand an oral fluid sample or a standardized field sobriety test. These screeners would detect the presence of a drug in a driver's oral fluid. A positive result on the drug screener would give the officer reasonable grounds to believe that the driver was committing an impaired driving offence, at which point he or she could demand a blood sample or call a drug recognition expert. There is a solid history of both the effectiveness of this test and of jurisprudence in dealing with challenges to it.

With Bill C-46, police would be able to use an oral fluid drug screener that could detect THC, cocaine, and methamphetamine. These devices would be approved by the Attorney General of Canada once they were evaluated and recommended by the Canadian Society of Forensic Science.

Six different Canadian police services, from Halifax to Vancouver to Yellowknife, tested these devices in a pilot project earlier this year to ensure that they worked in a variety of conditions, including cold temperatures. I look forward to the public report on that project, which should be available soon.

The bill would create three new criminal offences so that people who had an illegal level of drugs in their blood, or drugs in combination with alcohol, within two hours of driving could be charged. These offences could be proven by blood samples, which could be taken by police when there were reasonable grounds to believe that a driver was impaired.

Law enforcement officials have highlighted that existing impaired-driving laws are complex and difficult to apply. For example, some offences overlap, and some cases take up a great deal of court time. Bill C-46 would repeal this current regime and replace it with a modernized, simplified, and coherent structure. Police across the country would be able to better understand, apply, and enforce the law and therefore be better able to keep communities safe.

Bill C-46 would also facilitate the detection of impaired drivers by allowing for random roadside breath testing. This is something that already exists in countries such as Australia, New Zealand, and Ireland. Groups like MADD Canada have been calling for it for a long time because of research showing that it results in fewer accidents and saves lives.

Ultimately, Bill C-46 would institute and enhance a legislative framework to detect, prevent, and punish impaired driving. As I said earlier, though, a legislative approach must be accompanied by public education and efforts to combat the persistent misinformation that exists among Canadians on this issue.

I am encouraged that Public Safety Canada has launched and promoted social media campaigns this year targeting youth, parents, and drivers with a message encouraging sober driving and amplifying the message of our partners. The March campaign garnered 11.5 million impressions, meaning the number of times the content was displayed, and over 75,000 engagements, such as likes, comments, and shares, meaning it reached a large audience. I understand that a comprehensive marketing strategy is also under development, including a sustained public education and awareness campaign to combat drug-impaired driving, in collaboration with various partners. This campaign should help address some of the misperceptions that exist about the effects of certain substances on a person's ability to drive.

The changes we are proposing now mean that the government would be providing law enforcement agencies with clearer laws, better technology, better training, and more resources to investigate and prosecute drug-impaired drivers. It would mean tougher penalties to deal appropriately with offenders and better public education and awareness about the dangers of driving while impaired. As a result, Canadians would have safer roadways and safer communities.

I am encouraged by the response to these proposed measures thus far, including from Mothers Against Drunk Driving and others. That is why I urge all members to support this important legislation.

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May 31st, 2017 / 4:25 p.m.
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NDP

Sheri Benson NDP Saskatoon West, SK

Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague brought forward a very serious and depressing statistic about my own province, which of course is that it has the highest rate of police-reported impaired driving, so I am pleased that the NDP will be supporting this bill.

I want to ask my colleague to comment on two things I would like to see looked into at the committee stage.

First, the Saskatchewan government has been asking the federal government for more funding and training so that they will be better prepared and better trained to recognize people when they are under the influence of cannabis.

The second issue people have brought forward in my community is that prior to this bill, the police had to have a reasonable suspicion to stop someone. With the new bill, that threshold would be reduced. I know that some people in my community are concerned that those folks and visible minorities may be targeted by the police.

I would like to hear what my colleague's comments are on those two points.

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May 31st, 2017 / 4:25 p.m.
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Liberal

Yasmin Ratansi Liberal Don Valley East, ON

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for her concerns, and I agree with her that there may be a perception that the police might just pick on some visible minorities, but that is not the intent of the bill. The bill intends to ensure that all of us are safe, that people who have consumed alcohol or drugs do not take to the roads. The police would be given the power, when they stop a person for a driving infraction, to tell the person why they are stopping them and to give a test. They can do a reasonable amount of search in terms of seeing a person's eyes or seeing if there is an odour, but the police also can call in a drug enforcement person to take a look at it. Therefore, there are checks and balances in the system.

The second thing we also need to do is to work with the provinces, territories, and municipalities toward better public education. I am so glad to see the Minister for Public Safety has started that consultation and broad expansion of the communication.

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May 31st, 2017 / 4:25 p.m.
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Scarborough Southwest Ontario

Liberal

Bill Blair LiberalParliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada

Mr. Speaker, to follow up on the question answered by my colleague, I would just point out that Bill C-46, proposed subsection 320.27(2), requires that a police officer, if in possession of an approved screening device, “in the course of the lawful exercise of powers under an Act of Parliament or an Act of a provincial legislature or arising at common law,” may make a demand for a test. The stop itself must be lawful.

I offer that suggestion to my friend. The stop is required to be lawful. If the stop was otherwise rendered unlawful—for example, the reason for the stop was something inappropriate, such as discrimination on the basis of race or ethnicity—the stop would be rendered unlawful and the test and its results would be inadmissible under the Constitution.

I would ask the member if she would find that provision, which is new, to be reasonable reassurance of the concerns that have been expressed.