Thank you.
First, I'd like to thank our national president, Patricia, for her courage in sharing her story and being here representing thousands of victims from across Canada.
In my remarks today, I will focus specifically on what we consider the most important issue in Bill C-46 and what we think is one of the most important impaired driving countermeasures available: mandatory alcohol screening.
The other measures in the bill, which we support, are the evidentiary and procedural changes, which, if enacted, would address some of the technical concerns with the existing law, questionable court decisions, and other obstacles that make our current system ineffective in enforcing and in prosecuting impaired driving. Fewer impaired drivers would evade criminal responsibility due to factors unrelated to their criminal conduct, and those convicted would be subject to more onerous sanctions.
MADD Canada also strongly supports the measures dealing with drugs and driving, the three per se levels, the use of oral fluid screeners, and the reduced licence suspension period for alcohol interlock programs.
Canada's record on impaired driving is very poor. In 2016, the Centers for Disease Control in the United States released a report indicating that Canada had the highest percentage of alcohol-related crash deaths among the 20 wealthy nations studied.
MADD Canada strongly supports and promotes new legislation that focuses on deterrents. We need to deter people from driving when they have consumed too much alcohol. We need to deter people before they cause a crash that kills or injures someone, and that is why we need to authorize police to use mandatory alcohol screening.
Before proceeding on the merits of mandatory alcohol screening, I need to correct some misperceptions about it. Mandatory alcohol screening best practices mandate that all vehicles are checked and all drivers stopped must provide a breath sample. Mandatory alcohol screening operates the same way as mandatory screening processes at airports, on Parliament Hill, in courts, and in other government buildings.
Some witnesses have complained that mandatory alcohol screening would open the door to police harassment, discrimination, and targeting of visible minorities. We have found no such concerns about police conduct in this fashion in the mandatory alcohol screening research literature or in practice.
Canada's current system uses selective breath testing, and only drivers reasonably suspected of drinking can be tested. Studies have shown that the selective breath testing programs miss a significant portion of legally impaired drivers. They miss 90% of drivers with blood alcohol levels between .05% and .079%, and 60% of drivers with BAC over the current Criminal Code limit of .08%.
As member of Parliament, Bill Blair, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada, stated in Parliament on June 9, 2016, “The realization that they cannot avoid giving a breath sample at roadside will have a very significant deterrent effect on people who may choose to drink and drive. I would like to advise the House that this deterrent effect has been demonstrated countless times in many other countries.”
I can tell you numbers, but this slide tells it all. This is the experience in Ireland, which adopted mandatory alcohol screening in 2006. They've had a tremendous decrease in fatalities and injuries.
The other thing that's really important in mandatory alcohol screening is that, because it serves as a deterrent to potential drivers getting behind the wheel when they have consumed alcohol, they will not make that choice. It is less likely to find impaired drivers, so there is a significant drop in the number of people charged. I know that witnesses have come before you and claimed that this would overburden our court system. It is totally the opposite. There is no proof anywhere, in any country that has adopted mandatory alcohol screening, that it has caused any impact in a negative way on their justice system with charges.
We are not expecting the same results that Ireland has experienced. We are expecting somewhere around a 20% reduction in deaths and injuries in Canada, and that would result in at least 200 deaths and 12,000 injuries per year prevented from happening. It also would save our system about $4.3 billion.
In terms of public support for mandatory alcohol screening, once it's implemented, the support in the public goes up. For example, in 2002 in Queensland, 98.2% of the population supported mandatory alcohol screening.
There's already broad support for mandatory alcohol screening in Canada. In a 2009 survey, 66% of Canadians supported legislation authorizing police to conduct mandatory alcohol screening. A 2010 Ipsos Reid survey found that 77% of Canadians either “strongly” or “somewhat” supported the introduction of mandatory alcohol screening. When informed of mandatory alcohol screening's potential to reduce impaired driving deaths, 79% of Canadians agreed that mandatory alcohol screening is a reasonable intrusion on drivers.
Earlier last week, you heard from my colleague Dr. Robert Solomon on the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. I won't repeat those types of pieces, but let us remind ourselves that in 2015 an estimated 131 million passengers got on and off airplanes in Canada. It is not uncommon for them to take off their shoes, belts, and jewellery, show carry-on items, be swabbed for explosive devices, and be scanned for weapons and subject to pat-down searches. It's not uncommon to wait 10 to 15 minutes to be subject to one of these screening and search procedures. Such procedures are accepted because they serve a public safety function.
Put bluntly, far more Canadians are killed in alcohol-related crashes each year than in attacks on airplanes. Like airport procedures, mandatory alcohol screening is consistent with the charter.
In conclusion, MADD Canada would urge this current Parliament to show leadership and enact Bill C-46. Thank you very much.