Your comments are extremely relevant. The risk that this bill is attempting to prevent, by regulating or prohibiting the possession of drugs while in a motor vehicle, is the danger caused by individuals who have used drugs and are not able to drive a vehicle responsibly. If that is the goal being pursued, then legislation has to be passed that will enable us to attain that goal. Here, an offence is being created that does not attain that goal.
There is no connection between the fact that you, Mr. Lee, for example, may have a sleeping pill in your wallet while driving a motor vehicle, and the safety of the public in terms of protecting the public from drivers who are under the influence of alcohol or drugs.
If we want to be logical about this and see this as a way of ensuring safety on the roads, we would have to create a corresponding offence for anyone driving a vehicle in which there is a bottle of wine, or for someone coming back from the corner store with a case of beer to watch a hockey game, the logic is exactly the same. It is no more difficult to uncap a bottle of beer or roll a marijuana joint while driving a vehicle.
So, it is quite obvious that there is no rational link between the prohibition and the goal being pursued. It is unconceivable that we would prohibit someone from having a bottle of beer or two in his car, supposedly to ensure safety on the roads.
Indeed, the Quebec Highway Traffic Code prohibits the consumption of alcohol in a vehicle. That applies not only to the driver, but to anyone travelling in the vehicle. However, that prohibition does not include penalties such as suspension of the driver's permit, demerit points or anything else of that nature. There is a fine associated with the commission of that offence, obviously, but there is nothing so radical as what is provided for in the new section 253.1.
There are other comments that should be made with respect to that clause, particularly as regards the sentence. This clause creates a harsher sentence than the one currently provided for under the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, particularly with respect to cannabis. The penalty for simple possession of cannabis is the same as for the summary offence, reduced by no more than $1,000 and six months in prison, whereas in this case, there is an option to prosecute by indictment with a five-year prison term for an offence that is essentially the same as the one now covered by the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act.
And this clause contains a further absurdity: the penalty of a prohibition on driving. Proposed clause 253.1 provides no opportunity for an offender to use an alcohol-ignition interlock device. Thus, the following situation might arise. A person is stopped with a sleeping pill in his wallet and is sentenced, in theory, to a harsher penalty than someone liable to be charged with an offence under the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act. That person would be prohibited from driving for a year and would not have the option of using an alcohol-ignition interlock device, even though he was perfectly sober and fit to drive at the time he was intercepted. On the other side, you have an individual who could be stopped because he was dead drunk and, three months after the prohibition, could request the use of an alcohol-ignition interlock device with his vehicle.
So, as you can see, there is a complete imbalance between the treatment of these two types of offenders when, in actual fact, the problem we are trying to prevent is the same. In our opinion, this provision, primarily because of the lack of any logical connection between the prohibition and the goal being pursued, which is to ensure road safety, is beyond repair.