Thank you.
My colleagues here have covered some of the issues I had some concerns about, including the lack of connection between impairment and possession of an illegal substance in the vehicle. But I do have one issue, and it is under clause 3 of Bill C-32, in proposed subsection 254(2), which says:
If a peace officer has reasonable grounds to suspect that a person has in the preceding three hours had alcohol or a drug in their body while they were operating—the peace officer may, by demand, require the person to comply with
When we look at the actual Criminal Code and the section that is being amended by Bill C-32, there's a clear link between the officer having to have
reasonable and probable grounds that a person is committing, or at any time within the preceding three hours has committed—an offence under section 253
The reasonable ground that the officer has to have is that the individual actually may be impaired.
Under Bill C-32, the peace officer no longer has to have reasonable grounds to believe the driver has committed an offence under section 253, which is the offence of impairment. The officer merely has to have reasonable grounds to believe that the person, in the preceding three hours, had alcohol or drugs in their body. That's a real problem. Do you not see that as being a problem, Mr. Solomon?
I would prefer to see that, under clause 3 of Bill C-32, in proposed subsection 254(3), we add in the reasonable ground that an offence was committed under section 253. That would then allow the officer to conduct the breathalyzer test, the breath test, the road sobriety test, whatever. That would then trigger all of the other mechanisms the officer has to confirm or inform his reasonable grounds that the driver was impaired. Right now, nowhere in that subsection do we talk about having committed an offence under section 253. We find that in the Criminal Code, but we don't find it here.