Evidence of meeting #15 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 drivers.
A recording is available from Parliament.
5:05 p.m.
Conservative
Daniel Petit Conservative Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC
I will not take long, because there will be a vote at 5:15 and we will have to go to the House to vote on a motion put forward by the Bloc Québécois. So yes, our time is limited.
I have a question just for Mr. Brown, if I may. You raised the issue from a particular point of view. We certainly understand from your testimony—at least this is what Mr. Ménard was implying—that the criminal justice system is not necessarily the right approach in some cases. Up to that point, I can follow the direction in which we are headed.
As you know, there was a major anti-smoking campaign. From the point of view of the criminal justice system at the moment, it looks like we are attacking smokers. And yet, the anti-smoking campaign attacked the product, and not the smoker, by increasing the price of cigarettes. At the moment, the price of a carton of 20 packages of cigarettes is $72, while a case of 24 beers costs about $32.
Do you think our first approach should be to attack people who produce beer? Because this is the first component of the problem—the beer producer.
Second, have you looked at the possibility of having beer, which has a 4.1% alcohol content for 341 millilitres, being sold still as beer but with a lower percentage of alcohol—such as 2% or 3%? As you know, a person's ability to imbibe beer is limited: when someone has drunk a case of 24 beers with an alcohol content of 2%, he cannot drink any more.
Could you not suggest some approaches along these lines? Have you looked at this option? At the moment, we want to put everyone in prison, we all want to find a solution to the problem, we're all good people, but we are not targeting the product, even though it is the product that is causing the problem. In the case of cigarettes, the campaign worked because of the advertising and the fact that the price of cigarettes was increased so much that smoking almost became a luxury. Could we not consider doing something like this?
5:05 p.m.
Researcher, Addiction Research Program, Douglas Institute, McGill University, As an Individual
I personally haven't done any research in that area and I'm not really an expert in those kinds of measures to reduce alcohol use and the burden caused by alcohol use in that fashion. I think that accessibility to products, whatever they are, is a necessary aspect to explain abuse of those substances. If they're not readily available or are less available, you see reductions in consumption in most cases.
Perhaps there's something to consider there. There's also something to consider concerning the availability of overpowered vehicles and how we represent automobiles in our society. That kind of goes along the same lines of what you're talking about. We have social values here that are really shooting us in the foot with respect to prevention of death, especially of youth. Messages that are quite pervasive in our society about the desirability of using alcohol and other drugs and substances and driving hugely overpowered vehicles quickly are not helping us.
5:10 p.m.
Conservative
Daniel Petit Conservative Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC
I will be sharing my time with one of my colleagues.
5:10 p.m.
Conservative
Rick Dykstra Conservative St. Catharines, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
One of the things you presented on to the group was the interlock device and its ability to curtail repeat offenders, for the most part. One of the points a number of folks have made throughout this discussion is on the potential to have the device installed when the vehicle is being built on the line, so all vehicles come with the device in them.
I wouldn't mind hearing from those who wish to comment on whether they would recommend that as a position the industry should move forward on, and whether or not it's something we should legislate.
5:10 p.m.
Co-Chair, Strategy to Reduce Impaired Driving, Canadian Council of Motor Transport Administrators
There is an international committee being run out of the United States, of which Transport Canada is a member, looking at original equipment manufacture of these devices. A couple of manufacturers are also working on these technologies, but they're still a number of years away.
The other thing to consider is that once you have the device, it would take roughly 11 years to roll over 80% of the fleet. The people who would make use of these the most are probably the ones least likely to get new cars, so it would be a long time before those people would be exposed to that device. That may be a long-term solution, but not necessarily a short-term one.
5:10 p.m.
Manager, Research and Policy, Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse
I am also a member of the committee Mr. Boase speaks about. It is a long-term process. It's something we should be looking at, but don't hold your breath. It's a long way away.
5:10 p.m.
Conservative
Rick Dykstra Conservative St. Catharines, ON
That's an interesting choice of metaphor.
My other question relates to two things. From an overall perspective, Mr. Hoskins, one of the questions I asked in one of the other committees was around the issue of random testing and how it relates to the ability to stand up under a charter challenge. Of course, whenever we raise these types of issues about random anything and the potential to invade someone's privacy or space in this country, there are questions about whether or not we can do that.
In your province or any other province, is there the potential for something like this to be challenged in the near future so we can determine whether it would stand the test of a charter challenge?
5:10 p.m.
Q.C., As an Individual
I'm not a constitutional expert, but I think it will be constitutionally challenged if it is passed.
5:10 p.m.
Conservative
Rick Dykstra Conservative St. Catharines, ON
Do you have a recommendation on the likelihood of success of that challenge?
5:10 p.m.
Q.C., As an Individual
I don't because I haven't done an analysis of it myself, but I think the proportionality area would be most litigated.
February 28th, 2008 / 5:10 p.m.
Liberal
5:10 p.m.
Conservative
Rick Dykstra Conservative St. Catharines, ON
I apologize--Mr. Lee, sorry--but on a point of order, Mr. Chair, I think Mr. Yost had wanted to make a comment.
5:10 p.m.
Conservative
5:10 p.m.
Counsel, Criminal Law Policy Section, Department of Justice
Yes, thank you.
If you find the paper that we submitted, annex 1 looks at international experience with RBT. I won't run through it other than to give you some examples.
It was introduced in Ireland in July 2006. It was credited with reducing the number of people killed on Irish roads by almost a quarter, 23%. It was introduced in New Zealand in 1993, admittedly with such other things as 0.05, and there was a 22% increase...or decrease, I should say; geez, an increase would be a disaster.
So there's a good deal of evidence on the side of the public safety benefit for which we have to balance the public inconvenience of having to provide a breath sample. But there is evidence of that.
5:15 p.m.
Liberal
Derek Lee Liberal Scarborough—Rouge River, ON
Okay, we're back on.
To Mr. Beirness, in a document that we had distributed here recently there was a chart: male, female, one drink, two drinks, 100 pounds, 120 pounds, whatever. It showed pretty clearly that if a 110-pound female, I think, had a second drink of wine, on the chart she would have passed the 0.05 level.
As a legislator, I have difficulty criminalizing a female just because she has that second glass of wine and we might lower that limit from 0.08 to 0.05, even though she may not be materially impaired in any way that would affect her driving. That causes me a lot of caution.
Am I on the right track, do you think, in terms of being cautious about criminalizing, just by definition, that second drink of wine for that 110-pound female?
5:15 p.m.
Manager, Research and Policy, Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse
I think you're on the right track. What we also have to consider, though, is how impaired that person is.
5:15 p.m.
Manager, Research and Policy, Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse
That's why we have the two sections, impaired and over the limit. Either one can apply.
5:15 p.m.
Liberal
Derek Lee Liberal Scarborough—Rouge River, ON
Oh, I don't even pause; if she has any real impairment in her driving, this is a serious social misconduct and should be criminalized as impaired. But I think you've answered my question.
My second question is to Mr. Pruden or Mr. Yost. Recently I had a chance to look at a system in the United Kingdom--I don't think we could do this under our charter--where they take problem drug users and problem drinkers and bundle them together. They call them “PPOs”, priority and persistent offenders. If you have six notations with police intelligence--just notations, not arrests--and you have a charge that comes down the pipeline, then you have to have a blood test. By use of a carrot-and-stick approach, they divert most of these people, those who are alcohol- or drug-addicted, into programming. They think they're making a big dent with the program. It's expensive as heck.
Since the feds operate our drug courts, and since the Criminal Code has set up the drunk driving thing, do you think it would be at all possible for the federal government to look at, or has the federal government looked at, bundling this type of offender?
5:15 p.m.
Counsel, Criminal Law Policy Section, Department of Justice
I'll take a shot at that, just quickly. First of all, of course, it's the provinces that operate the drug courts. We have been subsidizing them, helping them to set them up, but it's provincial administration.
