Mr. Graham, my question is for you and perhaps Ms. Scott as well.
Earlier we talked about the costs that you perhaps had not evaluated.
With regard to blood alcohol levels, you know as well as I do that, when the qualified technician is at the police station, he completes a form. He prepares two columns. He enters the blood alcohol level and all the steps he has taken to show that the breathalyzer is accurate and may be filed in evidence in court.
At first, we lawyers saw a problem in this, that is to say that we brought in the qualified technician to testify. But we subsequently realized that that cost the government a lot of money and immobilized all, or nearly all the police stations. There are places where there were perhaps 20 blood alcohol cases, but it wasn't necessarily the same police department that was involved. Subpoenas were issued in order to question the qualified technicians, and that paralyzed the entire police system. It started to cost a lot of money, and I'm not kidding.
The problem was solved when permission was given to file the qualified technician's certificate. So we received the evidence beforehand, and, if we didn't agree, we informed the court or the Crown prosecutor that we intended to challenge the certificate. In that case, the technician came to court to explain that everything had gone well.
Will all the steps the DREs take be compiled in a kind of log that we can file in court? Don't forget that there are 12 steps. Imagine, 12 steps! As a lawyer, I can subpoena you on each of the 12 steps to say that it wasn't properly conducted, that you made errors and so on.
Did you examine that? You said you had had an experience like that in British Columbia. Will the technicians, the DREs be called as witnesses more often? Will they be able to file a report that will be accepted by the court? It should not be forgotten that this is a matter of evidence. If everything is well done, if we can't have the evidence accepted, it won't work.
In your experience in British Columbia, did you look into that?