Evidence of meeting #28 for Justice and Human Rights in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was driver.
A recording is available from Parliament.
October 18th, 2016 / 11:50 a.m.
Liberal
Ron McKinnon Liberal Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam, BC
Thank you, Ms. Kaulius, for your testimony, and Mr. Sikand, for bringing this bill forward.
My question is for Mr. Sikand.
According to a paper prepared by Professor Robert Solomon of Western University for Mothers Against Drunk Driving, there is currently nothing preventing Canadian police officers from using passive detection devices. If that is the case, what does this bill add? What does it bring to the table?
11:50 a.m.
Liberal
Gagan Sikand Liberal Mississauga—Streetsville, ON
I believe that to be accurate, as well, nothing actually prevents a peace officer from using the device at the moment, but I think it would clear up a lot of the confusion around it. An officer right now may be hesitant to use the device if he doesn't necessarily know how it will play out in court, for example. I think by explicitly allowing peace officers to use it, we are standardizing the use of the device across all the jurisdictions, as well.
It clears up any confusion around the ability for this device or feature to be used.
11:50 a.m.
Liberal
Ron McKinnon Liberal Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam, BC
Do police officers in Canada use devices of this kind currently? What can we learn from their experiences?
11:50 a.m.
Liberal
Gagan Sikand Liberal Mississauga—Streetsville, ON
I can't necessarily speak to that, to be honest. It's based on personal use. Again, the RCMP has the Dräger, which has that feature in it. You would have to speak to the particular peace officers or police jurisdictions to see if their officers use this feature or not.
11:50 a.m.
Liberal
11:50 a.m.
Liberal
11:50 a.m.
Liberal
Ron McKinnon Liberal Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam, BC
They can already use this. What do they do with the information? If they have a passive detection device that says there's alcohol somewhere, what do they do then? When would they use this? If they haven't witnessed overt bad driving or erratic driving, and it there's no smell of alcohol on the breath or in the car, why would they use this device? What would give them the notion that they should use it?
11:50 a.m.
Liberal
Gagan Sikand Liberal Mississauga—Streetsville, ON
For example, an officer might have been suffering from the flu or a cold and although they are better, perhaps they don't have full confidence in their ability to now detect the presence of alcohol through smell, so they can always use the passive device as a substitute.
11:50 a.m.
Liberal
Ron McKinnon Liberal Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam, BC
Let's say there's erratic driving but no smell of alcohol is detected. I'm just wondering why the officer would choose to use a device like this.
11:50 a.m.
Liberal
Gagan Sikand Liberal Mississauga—Streetsville, ON
It can be used in conjunction with their senses. Also, if you look at the process by which they go to court, now they have data that can't be refuted as easily as a prosecutor suggesting an officer was incorrect in his observations. Now they also have physical data from a machine that can also testify to the fact that there was alcohol present, which would require the driver to submit to the roadside screening device.
11:55 a.m.
Liberal
Ron McKinnon Liberal Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam, BC
Would this device allow them, given that perhaps there's no overt erratic driving, the ability to lay a charge of impaired driving?
11:55 a.m.
Liberal
Gagan Sikand Liberal Mississauga—Streetsville, ON
No, it just establishes reasonable grounds on which to allow you to ask a driver to submit to a roadside breath test. Once that is failed, there are grounds to have a driver submit to a Breathalyzer. Once the Breathalyzer goes red, at that point they can lay the charge.
11:55 a.m.
Liberal
Ron McKinnon Liberal Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam, BC
What about false positives? You mentioned that other passengers in the vehicle perhaps wouldn't trigger this, but perhaps someone is wearing perfume or cologne or something with alcohol in it. Perhaps they've just washed their dash with an alcohol rub or something. That potentially would give a false positive.
If we have a positive at all, we have a presumption of alcohol in the body, right? I'm wondering what you see as being the consequences of that.
11:55 a.m.
Liberal
Gagan Sikand Liberal Mississauga—Streetsville, ON
This was a concern in the past, but I believe the technology has advanced far enough that this would be very rare. The sensors are quite acute. The concentration would have to be quite high.
Again, it's used within six inches of someone's mouth, so it won't really pick up much else.
11:55 a.m.
Liberal
Ron McKinnon Liberal Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam, BC
This wouldn't be really subtle but something basically thrust in front of a driver who's told, “Speak to me”.
11:55 a.m.
Liberal
Gagan Sikand Liberal Mississauga—Streetsville, ON
Not necessarily. It's just the same as if you were driving, an officer was to approach your vehicle, as they do now, and they spoke to you through the distance they have there, between the window.
11:55 a.m.
Liberal
11:55 a.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Anthony Housefather
Thank you very much, Mr. McKinnon.
We'll move to the second round of questioning.
Mr. Fraser.
11:55 a.m.
Liberal
Colin Fraser Liberal West Nova, NS
Thanks very much for being here and for your presentation.
Mr. Sikand, I think it was touched on that it's in use in other jurisdictions. I'm wondering if you can highlight some of the jurisdictions it's used in. In what other countries around the world do they have experience with such a passive detection device?
11:55 a.m.
Liberal
Gagan Sikand Liberal Mississauga—Streetsville, ON
I know the United States uses it. I believe New Zealand does, and Australia as well. I can provide a comprehensive list to the committee.
11:55 a.m.
Liberal
Colin Fraser Liberal West Nova, NS
With regard to the reliability of the machine, I assume you're aware, then, of the reliability of the machine and have full confidence that it detects alcohol on the person's breath. I'm wondering if you can describe your understanding of how the machine actually would give a reading. Does it just detect any alcohol on the person's breath? Does it have a threshold that has to be met before it gives a positive, for example?
11:55 a.m.
Liberal
Gagan Sikand Liberal Mississauga—Streetsville, ON
The thresholds can be set according to jurisdiction, and I do have confidence in the machine. Again, the way I see this being used, the most effective use of it, would be for a police officer to use their own senses but then also have the machine. The feature is very simple. You push a button, it sucks in a bit of air, you hear the fan, and it gives you the reading.
Between those two, if alcohol is there, I believe you have a high probability of establishing those grounds.
11:55 a.m.
President, Families For Justice
I'd like to add something to that.
As it stands right now, if they had the passive detection device, it could detect alcohol, the sense or smell of alcohol. Then they would be required to blow into it like a Breathalyzer. It's called an ASD, which is the breath concentration. They're given a test, and then they are given a second test. If that comes up as either false or positive, they are given the opportunity to have a second blow into a machine to determine whether the reading is correct or not. It's not just one test.
11:55 a.m.
Liberal
Colin Fraser Liberal West Nova, NS
I understand that. This is one of the tools, as you say, to establish reasonable grounds to suspect that the person has alcohol in their system—to put them on the ASD, the alert, in order to then determine whether there's reasonable and probable grounds, and then give them the Breathalyzer. I understand there are steps along the way here.
With regard to its utility, I'm assuming you would envision this being used at police checkpoints to screen for drinking and driving. Is that right?