Evidence of meeting #65 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 impaired.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Ron McKinnon Liberal Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam, BC
I guess a concern about a selection process like that is profiling.
Do you have a concern about that, and what control would you have to prevent that?
A/Commr Doug Fryer
I suppose if I separate the single-officer patrols, they've already seen a level of impairment that's indicated that the vehicle needs to be pulled over and checked. I'm relatively comfortable with that. On our bigger drug buses that are pulling over everybody, the concept is that it be randomized, whether it's every 15th car that will be tested or.... We are getting people who are 70 years old tested for drugs. For me that's an indication that at least it's random, and they're not picking on the 22-year-old with dreadlocks.
The idea is that it's randomized. We haven't had any challenges come back that we're profiling in our testing, and all our roadside large drug testing operations are supervised by senior officers. We're pretty comfortable with it.
Liberal
Ron McKinnon Liberal Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam, BC
You indicated that you had individuals detect as positive 18 hours after using marijuana. Would you consider that person impaired and would that person be charged with an offence?
A/Commr Doug Fryer
They'd absolutely be charged with drug driving, if we can detect it. The courts have already set the benchmark through legislation that if it's detectable through our testing regime, they'll now be convicted of drug driving. Our first penalty is three months' loss of licence and a $500 fine. A second time of drug driving is about a $3,000 fine, and we can seize their car as well.
Liberal
Ron McKinnon Liberal Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam, BC
As Mr. Cannings suggested, it is zero tolerance for drugs or alcohol.
A/Commr Doug Fryer
It's absolutely zero tolerance.
The research we rely on is that any detectable presence is an equivalent of about .1 when it comes to alcohol. We know when we have a .1 when it comes to alcohol, there's at least double the chance of having a crash on the road. For us, it's protecting the other road users who are not driving either alcohol or drug impaired.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Anthony Housefather
Thank you very much.
Does anybody still have any short questions? If not, I want to thank Assistant Commissioner Fryer and Dr. Marcotte. It was a great pleasure to have you here. It's always nice for us Canadians to get the foreign perspective. Your testimony was extremely helpful.
Members of the committee, we are going in camera for a very short session. I'd ask everybody who is not supposed to be here for an in camera session to clear the room as quickly as possible so we can do that. I promise it will only be about five minutes.
[Proceedings continue in camera]