A funding issue.
Evidence of meeting #12 for Justice and Human Rights in the 39th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was cases.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Evidence of meeting #12 for Justice and Human Rights in the 39th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was cases.
A recording is available from Parliament.
5:10 p.m.
Chief Executive Officer, Traffic Injury Research Foundation
Yes. I know it's something that Transport would like to do, and I know it's something that some people from Justice are interested in doing.
As I said, I think the information we got from the lawyers survey is very valuable in telling us how well we're doing and where some of the gaps are. In the U.S., where we surveyed police, prosecutors, judges, and probation, we figured out that most of their problems are very similar. There's a lot of consensus on solutions, and we've been able to leverage that consensus across professional groups to get some meaningful changes made.
It's easier to bring people together with their similarities than their differences.
5:10 p.m.
Conservative
5:10 p.m.
Chief Executive Officer, Traffic Injury Research Foundation
Yes. They funded the survey.
5:10 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Art Hanger
So Transport Canada funds surveys in American states with American—
5:10 p.m.
Chief Executive Officer, Traffic Injury Research Foundation
No. Actually, Anheuser-Busch funded our research in the United States.
5:10 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Art Hanger
I see. It would be good to see a Canadian survey once in a while.
The other point you brought up in your executive summary is the difference between the conviction rate in Quebec, at 41%, and in the Maritimes, at 75%. What is this vast difference in conviction rates due to?
5:10 p.m.
Chief Executive Officer, Traffic Injury Research Foundation
It's the smaller caseloads out in the Atlantic provinces. They'd do about 100 cases versus the 150 cases they'd do in Quebec. And almost 90% of all of their impaired driving cases are 0.120% and up, so they're doing the very high-BAC offenders, and they tend to plea more cases.
The police also tend to be doing an excellent job out in the Atlantic regions. We find that there seems to be a better rapport between crown and police working together. If you look at arrest issues, screening device issues, and those sorts of pre-prosecution and arrest-type issues, they seem to be smaller in the Atlantic region than they are in some other jurisdictions.
So I think there are a couple of things going on, but--
5:10 p.m.
Conservative
5:10 p.m.
Chief Executive Officer, Traffic Injury Research Foundation
Yes. That's why they're doing so well with the conviction rate.
5:10 p.m.
Chief Executive Officer, Traffic Injury Research Foundation
Out in the Maritimes? I would have to go and look at that. It wasn't something we looked at as part of the survey, although it is data that we do collect.
5:10 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Art Hanger
It's rather interesting to see such a difference in the blood alcohol content enforcement level. It's maybe very difficult to compare.
5:10 p.m.
Chief Executive Officer, Traffic Injury Research Foundation
I would think, too, it's not necessarily the police who aren't enforcing it. What you're seeing for some crown offices is that if you bring in a 0.08%, they won't touch it.
5:10 p.m.
Conservative
5:10 p.m.
Chief Executive Officer, Traffic Injury Research Foundation
They're like, “Bring me 0.1% or higher.”
So it's a function as much as crown policies...and that's what we found in the survey of lawyers. There seems to be a lot of differentiation between what the actual practices are, what cases will be pled, versus what cases go to trial, what the BAC levels are. Those differences and practices also account for some of the differences in conviction rate.
5:10 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Art Hanger
But that's not to say that they're laying less charges; it's just the conviction rate for those that do go to trial.
5:10 p.m.
Conservative
5:10 p.m.
Conservative
Daniel Petit Conservative Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC
I'm going to go back to the question I asked you earlier. Let's suppose a person is convicted for his involvement in a fatal car accident and that his blood alcohol level is 0.08%. In my practice, I've often seen fatal accident cases in which it was a first offence for the person involved. That person could serve his sentence in the community. You see what I mean.
We're permissive with those entering the penitentiary system. This system in Canada is like a big Swiss cheese, full of holes. There are a host of options for getting off, for never going to prison. Someone said earlier that we have to be able to put pressure on people before they are imprisoned or charged. Wouldn't there be some way of sending a message? You talked about fines and imprisonment. That's unfortunate, but we don't imprison these people in Quebec: we let them go.
5:15 p.m.
Full Professor, Research Group on the Social Aspects of Health and Prevention (GRASP), Université de Montréal
In the case of the 2,700 persons who die on Canada's roads every year, we're not talking about people who have been convicted or incarcerated. This is another type of driver. Our work is to find deterrents. The most important thing is that Canadians believe, when they take to the road, that the possibility that they will be stopped is entirely real. You must rely on that belief. Unfortunately, sentences of 25 years or life do not have that deterrent effect. The experiment was conducted in Massachusetts, and it was very well documented. The important thing is that the risk of being stopped, either by detectors or roadblocks, is utterly real for people. That's what works. Harsher punishment is reassuring, but it isn't effective.
5:15 p.m.
An hon. member
That means more police officers.
5:15 p.m.
Conservative