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 words--“who is operating a motor vehicle”. Now, the courts have allowed a little bit of time, but if it takes 40 minutes for the police to straighten out who has done what, that person's not operating. If they just suspect alcohol but they haven't got reasonable and probable grounds, they can't ask for the screening test to see how the person will blow.
The new provision that we propose is that if the police officer has reasonable grounds to suspect that a person has in the preceding three hours been operating a vehicle with alcohol in their system—so if the police officers smell alcohol 40 minutes later, after an accident—he, under this legislation, would be allowed to ask for the approved screening device, which could move to the next step.