Thank you, Mr. Chair and members, for allowing me to act on behalf of the alcohol test committee as a witness before you today.
After giving you an overview of the Canadian Society of Forensic Science and the alcohol test committee, we'll just be presenting a summary of the highlights from the brief that I and my colleagues prepared in response to the issues raised in the extract.
The Canadian Society of Forensic Science was founded in October 1953 by scientists with an interest in forensic science and the growth and development of forensic science in Canada, including the RCMP lab, other federal labs, and the Centre of Forensic Sciences in Toronto, the laboratory where I work. The alcohol test committee was formed as a committee of the Canadian Society of Forensic Science in 1967, at the same time as Parliament was considering Canada's first driving laws, per se. The focus of the alcohol test committee is to develop recommended procedures for breath testing, minimum standards for police training in the use of breath-testing equipment, and the evaluation of equipment for breath and blood alcohol testing, primarily breath alcohol testing.
Currently the alcohol test committee is an adviser to the Minister of Justice in the area of impaired driving, especially with respect to the evaluation of breath testing equipment for use in Canada. We're comprised of forensic sciences from the RCMP, the Centre for Forensic Sciences, and the Laboratoire de sciences judiciaires et de médecine légale in Montreal, and we represent all regions of Canada.
In the brief that I prepared we addressed the issues outlined in the extract primarily from a toxicological point of view. I will begin with an innovative approach, which is random breath testing.
It's well known from pharmacological and toxicological studies that intoxication is an advanced state of impairment. Consider the findings of publications from me and colleagues at the Centre of Forensic Sciences and others that the average blood alcohol concentration of drinking drivers in Ontario--our work was done with Toronto data--is an average of 160 milligrams of alcohol in 100 millilitres of blood, or 160 milligrams percent.