Justice Committee on Sept. 25th, 2017

[The Chair, Liberal, Anthony Housefather]

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome back to the meetings of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights as we focus on our review of Bill C-46.

I would like to welcome our witnesses. Today, joining us from the Canadian Society of Forensic Science is Daryl Mayers, chair of the alcohol test committee. From Mothers Against Drunk Driving, we have Patricia Hynes-Coates, the national president, and Andrew Murie, the chief executive officer. Welcome.

We have another witness who may or may not make it here. Regardless, we will start with the testimony of Mr. Mayers.

Mr. Mayers, the floor is yours.

[Dr. Daryl Mayers, Chair, Alcohol Test Committee, Canadian Society of Forensic Science]

Good afternoon, everyone.

The alcohol test committee of the Canadian Society of Forensic Science has provided independent scientific advice to the Minister of Justice on the detection and quantification of blood alcohol concentrations for the past 50 years. We are a group of dedicated volunteer scientists with expertise in breath and blood alcohol testing who are committed to maintaining the consistently high standard in alcohol testing that has become the accepted norm in Canada. The ATC has created standards for, and evaluates, all equipment proposed for alcohol testing in Canada. It recommends best practices in breath alcohol testing programs and recommends the operational procedures to be followed in the use of the equipment to ensure that the results are both accurate and reliable.

My remarks say there's an appendix, and there is. I supplied it to the clerk, and I'm sure everyone will get it at some point.

My opening remarks are going to touch both on some investigative and evidentiary matters that we feel would benefit from some further scientific context.

The first thing I turn to is the investigative matters and the mandatory alcohol screening. The alcohol test committee has been on record supporting this activity in both 2008 and most recently last year when I spoke to a standing committee. What is important to realize is that impairment of an individual's driving ability can often exist when the visible symptoms that may draw the attention of a police officer are absent. Approved screening devices can detect these individuals and, moreover, these ASDs are scientifically reliable, widely deployed, and well accepted in the courts for the purposes of detecting alcohol in the human body. No alcohol testing issue exists with regard to the implementation of this initiative.

I'll turn my attention—and I've tried to do this in order—to proposed section 320.28, “Samples of breath or blood — alcohol”. I understand it's been opined that the proposed section 320.28, coupled with the proposed paragraph 320.14(1)(b), the over 80 milligram bit, would lead to officers doing tests hours or perhaps even days after the incident. This hypothetical scenario seems of little concern when I read in proposed subparagraph 320.28(1)(a)(i) that the qualified technician must take samples of breath that, in their opinion, would allow a proper analysis of the breath. In my experience, any qualified technician asked to do a test on a subject a day after the alleged incident would decline because of the training they have received to become a qualified technician.

There are some evidentiary matters that we'd like to comment on. The first thing I want to make clear for this committee is that the alcohol test committee thinks that any Canadian approved instrument is, by our very definition, accurate and reliable when operated properly according to our guidelines, and will provide accurate and reliable blood alcohol results at the time of testing. I've provided all our standards to this committee.

Proposed subsection 320.31(2) specifically deals with analysts, such as myself, and we are somewhat concerned that this section appears to open the door for the type of disclosure motions that became prevalent in breath alcohol testing in the wake of 2008 amendments. The ATC responded then with our position paper, which indicated the required data and information necessary to determine that the approved instrument was in proper working order and was, therefore, reliable and accurate. This section appears to leave accredited Canadian forensic laboratories open to what was characterized by one of my members as a full-out attack on the analytical process.

Many of us have had our files subject to full disclosure, but our fear is that the scope of the request is likely to include materials that are not relevant to the analysis. The subsequent litigation to clarify the situation will be extremely costly. All analyses done in an accredited laboratory are subject to rigorous quality assurance and are accompanied by appropriate quality control measures. The alcohol test committee feels that this should be reflected in some manner in the legislation as a mechanism to limit disclosure motions that are resource intensive and, ultimately, have no benefit to the trier of the fact.

Moving quickly, as I am, to the presumption of blood alcohol concentrations, this is certainly going to require some adjustment. Our courts may require a judicial calculator allowance. However, the main message the ATC wants to convey is that, given the new wording of the law, there's no real possibility with this approach—i.e. the approach where the court can then do some calculations—that a court would come to a conclusion about the blood alcohol concentration that would be prejudicial to the accused person.

The suggestion that somehow a court would be presented with a zero result and, following the formula, extrapolate it to 120 milligrams of alcohol in 100 millilitres of blood when the incident happened—and that should be 12 hours prior—seems rather extraordinary. If such a thing were to happen, I am confident that competent scientific evidence from a qualified toxicologist would be adduced to assist the court in understanding why that should not be done.

It seems clear to us that the intent of this provision is to remove the burden of requiring a toxicologist in trials every time the lowest breath alcohol is at or above the per se limit and where the statutory presumption has been lost due to the passage of time. We are somewhat interested in how the courts will grapple with the times that don't fall in perfect half-hour intervals, and that will remain to be seen, but I'm sure it won't offer too much of a problem.

I want to briefly comment on the concept that toxicology adds virtually no time to a trial for the evidence to be entered. I actually take no issue with that assertion in uncomplicated cases, but you as the committee should be aware that my quick analysis of the typical Ottawa, Ontario Court of Justice case shows that it usually takes approximately eight to 12 different steps, involving six or seven different individuals, in three different organizations, before that brief appearance happens.

Moving to the disclosure of information, the listed items in proposed subsection 320.34(1) are traceable to the ATC position paper, in which we said, “Any messages produced by the instrument during the subject breath testing procedure that indicate”—emphasis added here—“an exception or error has occurred should be provided and assessed to determine their impact, if any, on the breath test results. Messages produced at other times are not scientifically relevant and need not be reviewed.”

Our concern is that proposed paragraph 320.34(1)(c) says, “any messages produced by the approved instrument at the time the samples were taken” must be disclosed. Not all messages produced are actually written down on the test record card. For example, in one of our approved instruments, “Please Blow/R” scrolls across the screen prior to the person giving the sample. That is captured nowhere, but it is a message associated with that breath testing. It appears to be suggested that this should be disclosed and it's really not necessary for that to be done.

Moving forward to the later sections, proposed subsections (3), (4), and (5) of 320.34—and we approach this with full disclosure, as it were, from a non-legal sense as scientists reading these sections—it appears to undermine the previous proposed subsection, 320.34(1). Other information is not relevant, but those sections seem to give credence to the possibility that there may be something else that is relevant, and it sets up the mechanisms for counsel to get at it. That seems to us to be capable of reigniting what I sometimes call the “disclosure wars” that arose shortly after the 2008 amendments to the Criminal Code. In part due to our position paper, disclosure has become settled law in some provinces. However, as I said, these sections seem to us to invite a reopening of that debate.

I'll be meeting with my alcohol test committee members for the remainder of the week. Bill C-46 is the first substantial agenda item I propose to talk to them about, and if, following discussion about today's proceedings, they feel further items need enhancement or clarification better than I have done, which is clearly possible, we will submit any comments we have. We would undertake to do that before the end of our meeting, which ends Thursday of this week. We'll try to do that rapidly, if necessary.

I would like to thank the committee for the opportunity to address you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Anthony Housefather]

Thank you very much, Mr. Mayers.

We will now move to Mothers Against Drunk Driving, and I'll pass the floor to Ms. Hynes-Coates.

[Patricia Hynes-Coates, National President, Mothers Against Drunk Driving]

Thank you.

Good afternoon. Thank you very much for this opportunity.

My name is Patricia Hynes-Coates, and I am the national president of MADD Canada.

Like so many people who get involved with MADD, my life has been forever changed by someone else's selfish choice to drive while they were impaired by drugs or alcohol. On August 16, 2013, my stepson, Nicholas Coates, was killed by an impaired driver. Nick was riding his motorcycle on his way to work. The man who struck Nicholas was driving his pickup truck. It was 11:17 in the day. That man had been drinking the night before and the morning of the crash.

Nicholas was a son. He was my stepson. He was a brother, an uncle, and a fiancé. He was a kind-hearted, hard-working young man. He was a civil engineer. He was only 27 years old when his life was tragically ripped away from him. Like all impaired driving crashes, Nicholas's loss has devastated so many people. It has forever altered our family, his friends, and our community. His death was completely senseless.

I think that's one of the hardest things to come to grips with. Nicholas died because someone made that selfish choice that day to get into his vehicle, and because of that, Nicholas is no longer with us.

There is no way to describe the pain that Nick's whole family is going through, or how deeply it's felt every waking day. Impaired driving has lifelong effects on families, on everyone involved. To this day, my husband still wakes up at night in a sweat, in a panic as he remembers his last visual memory of his little boy as Nicholas was rushed past him on a gurney, surrounded by doctors and nurses. The only thing left in that hallway was a trail of blood.

My family's story is just one of thousands that happen within our country. I have travelled throughout Canada, and I have seen first-hand the devastation of impaired driving. I recently witnessed a nine-year-old boy stumbling up to a church to light a candle in honour of his brother. The horror of his cries echoed throughout the church. It was devastating. No one should have to feel this loss, let alone a child.

Impaired driving is not only about death. It is also devastating and debilitating in injuries, some that will never ever heal.

I recently had a conversation with a dad who told me that when his son was in a crash on Boxing Day, he had to make the decision of whether his son would live or die. He chose life and he is forever grateful for that, but that young man, who was once vibrant, can no longer dress or feed himself. That is the destruction that happens from impaired driving, all this because of somebody else's choice.

The day my husband and I put Nicholas in his final resting place we made a promise to him that he would never, ever be forgotten, and we promised him that we would not rest until we ended this fight against impaired driving. It is that fight that brought me here today.

I am here to provide a voice for those who can no longer speak for themselves, and to speak on behalf of Nicholas and other victims throughout Canada. As a mom, as a grandmother, and a wife, I know that once we lose our loved ones to impaired driving, it's too late. There is nothing else we can do, so that's why I am here to encourage the government to please move forward with the crucial laws and amendments outlined in Bill C-46 so we can reduce impaired driving, prevent crashes, and save lives.

Thank you.

I am going to turn the rest of my time over to my CEO, Andy Murie.

[Andrew Murie, Chief Executive Officer, Mothers Against Drunk Driving]

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.

[The Chair, Liberal, Anthony Housefather]

Thank you very much for your presentation. It was very compelling and very moving.

We are joined by our other witness on this panel, Chief John Bates, Chief of Police for the Saint John Police Force.

Mr. Bates, the floor is yours.

[Chief John Bates, Chief of Police, Saint John Police Force]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Distinguished members of this committee, I am both pleased and honoured to have been afforded the opportunity to meet and speak with you today.

As was the case for our CACP president, Chief Mario Harel, who spoke with you last week, it is my first time appearing before the committee—any Commons committee, for that matter—and I consider it a privilege, if not somewhat bewildering.

The CACP has already provided the committee with its position on Bill C-46, a very technical bill, and it is not my intention to repeat what I consider its extremely thoughtful and valid insights. Undoubtedly, though, I will touch upon and reinforce some of those positions. My remarks will speak to some specifics, and I also hope to reinforce some overarching concerns and/or principles.

However, I first want to echo what my colleagues have already alluded to, that Bill C-46 contains some very positive changes that will serve to enhance the safety and security of Canadians as they relate to the scourge of impaired driving. Additionally, the recent funding announcement has, I believe, been well received by the policing community from coast to coast to coast and will go a long way as we prepare ourselves for what will flow from Bill C-45.

My comments to you will be my own, and from the perspective of the chief of a small to medium-sized police agency. Although I'm the vice-president of the organization, I am not here representing the New Brunswick Association of Chiefs of Police. Approximately three-quarters of all police agencies in Canada fall into the category of small or medium police forces and employ about 50% of the police officers across the country.

I'm going to suggest to this committee that what Parliament faces with Bill C-46 and the legalization of marijuana pursuant to Bill C-45 is what was popularized by Horst Rittel and Melvin Webber as a “wicked problem” in public policy. It is valid in this instance to define this as a wicked problem, as Brian Head, writing on “Wicked Problems in Public Policy”, described it, because—and I'm going to paraphrase—there's no single root cause of the complexity, uncertainty, or disagreement, and hence no single best approach to tackling the issues.

You will undoubtedly have heard a divergence of viewpoints during your deliberations. Let me briefly touch upon just a few of the things I've considered when contemplating July of 2018.

It is my respectful submission that notwithstanding testing results from the oral fluid screening devices, the applicable science and/or application of the science is not ready. I believe the CACP has submitted concerns specific to the oral fluid screening devices that undoubtedly referenced language proposed in the act with regard to those devices.

Additionally, questions linger as to where and how the use of oral fluid screening devices will fit into the continuum or the regime of the “impaired driving by drug” investigations. Another question is, what is the correlation between saliva concentrations and blood or fatty tissue concentrations of drugs, and what level or levels will constitute actual impairment, from a scientific perspective, as compared with those we have for impairment by alcohol?

As we contemplated the science, it led us to wonder about the combination of alcohol and cannabis and/or other drugs. There's the additive effect, whereby simply the combination of, say, alcohol and cannabis—one plus one—will equal two. But there's synergism with regard to narcotics and drugs, whereby one plus one can equal five, because the influence of one compounds the influence of the other, and then there's potentiation, whereby one and one plus one, as you combine more drugs and/or alcohol, can equal something like 10. I just bring the potential and problematic issue of the cannabis cocktail to your attention during your deliberations.

It should be recognized that following the legalization of marijuana there will be an increase in impaired driving; the studies show that. I think I can say with confidence, and it will come as no surprise to you to hear it, that by and large police agencies are not currently prepared for what Bill C-45 may present us on our highways and byways. Even if all the stars align for us by July of 2018 and we are ready, it will be just barely ready.

By way of example, in New Brunswick the number of police-reported incidents of drug-impaired driving have increased 193% between the years 2008 to 2016, and there has been a 54% increase since 2013. We currently have 18 DRE officers in our province, with 100 standard field sobriety test officers. We have approximately 40% of the DRE officers that our province requires, and we are a small province.

With the injection of additional training dollars and hopefully the resources to deliver the training, if we were to somehow manage to even double that number over the next five years, assuming no attrition, we would still be behind in adequate numbers. If I have my facts straight, we are approaching 50% attrition with DRE officers since 2013 in this country.

I can only speak on behalf of the Saint John Police Force, but it has been my recent experience that sourcing, securing, and funding training is challenging with the travel required to disparate locations for the wide variety of training that modern-day policing necessitates.

Ramping up the numbers of standard field sobriety test officers, which I wholeheartedly support, will, as I understand the investigative continuum for impaired-by-drug driving investigations, necessitate at least a proportional increase in DRE officers. The concern, and I believe it is valid, is that the demand will exceed availability for training. It will be like trying to drain an outdoor Olympic-size swimming pool with a garden hose in a rainstorm.

There are other implications: lab-testing capacity, Jordan decision implications, and rank-and-file training of members at the front lines. As I stated, my colleagues at the CACP have presented its position to this committee regarding Bill C-46, and while we're supportive of the bill, I think they have urged a delay to its becoming law in July 2018. As it stands today, I would support that delay.

Procedural fairness dictates that the law is applied reasonably and equally, and in an equal manner across Canada. Procedural fairness presumes the resources to apply the law equally across Canada. In the potential absence or application of good science and sound and timely preparation, the courts might be left to define the process, standards, and best practices. With respect, this is a job for government, for the CACP, and for the community. It is patently unfair to expect the courts to do our job with potentially undesirable or unintended results.

I know a great deal of thought has gone into potential charter implications. If the legislation or regulations are couched in terms of complexity, adaptation, and this in fact being a wicked problem, and if adequate resources, training, and time are provided, we can be ready. I'm not sanguine to the possibility that we, policing, will get there by 2018, but I'm hopeful.

In closing, I would ask the committee to consider, as I'm confident it has and will continue to do, two guiding insights when considering this wicked problem. One, we must be very thoughtful and insightful in setting the initial conditions, the legislation. Two, we must design legislation and regulation to allow for constant, collaborative, and informed adaptation. As an example, I believe there is a current list of drug categories—seven, I believe—in the pending legislation. I don't draft legislation, obviously, but I simply ask the question: do we risk boxing ourselves in? Change will occur; we know that.

It is my earnest hope that we will get this right and we'll have the necessary time to get it right. Once the final product, the legislation, becomes law, the burden of effective enforcement and public safety will fall to the front-line law enforcement community. Training, adequate human resources, equipment, and solid law will be crucial. The burden can be a heavy one, and we in policing sincerely want to get it right.

I thank the committee for the invitation to be here today.

[The Chair, Liberal, Anthony Housefather]

Thank you very much, Chief Bates.

We will now move on to questions, starting with Mr. Nicholson.

[Rob Nicholson, Conservative, Niagara Falls, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and thank you to our witnesses. This has been very helping in giving us greater insight into this bill and all the different issues. It's very much appreciated.

Mr. Cooper will take whatever time I have left over.

Could I start with you, Mr. Mayers? You raised one of the issues that we talked about last week, quite frankly, the evidentiary matters with respect to breath samples. I was pleased that you specifically mentioned proposed subsection 320.31(4), where it's more than two hours since the person ceased to operate the conveyance, and then the presupposition that there will be an additional five milligrams of alcohol in every 100 millilitres for every interval of 30 minutes in excess of two minutes. We heard testimony last week that this could be very problematic.

You said something interesting. You said that if somebody went to an expert to test this and it was a day or two later, they would refuse to do that. Doesn't that raise some concerns that the possibility even exists in the section? We're still trying to grapple with it. I'm still trying to grapple with it, to tell you the truth.

[Dr. Daryl Mayers]

It leaves little concern for me because, based on what I said about a previous action, I don't think you'll ever see a zero in front of a court. There's no breath tech that I've trained, and I've probably trained thousands, who would ever do a test on someone they knew to be 24 hours or 12 hours past the time of the occurrence. Even if you saw that come before a court, it would be an extremely unusual circumstance that a judge, in the absence of scientific guidance, would take it upon themselves to do that sort of an extrapolation for that amount of time.

Now, I do extrapolations of that type in different types of trials, for example, in cases of sexual assault, where the assault victim has zero blood alcohol but there's an allegation of consumption of alcohol at the time of the incident. A scientific approach would be if you have a zero result and a result from 12 hours before, and you want me to project it, my projection will be from zero to 240 milligrams of alcohol in 100 millilitres of blood, because I have to take into account the possibility that it is zero the whole time, but I also have to take into account something the judges are not going to do. That is, there's a higher rate of elimination available in some, so there would be a large range.

[Rob Nicholson, Conservative, Niagara Falls, ON]

Do you think it's a necessary section to have in there?

[Dr. Daryl Mayers]

Given the savings and resources that could be affected, I understand why that section is there. Given that it's possibly doing me out of a job, I'm not sure about that.

[Rob Nicholson, Conservative, Niagara Falls, ON]

Fair enough.

[Dr. Daryl Mayers]

Of course, that's a joke. Realistically, as I said, I don't think there is any opportunity for prejudice to the accused individual with that approach.

[Rob Nicholson, Conservative, Niagara Falls, ON]

Good. Thank you for that.

Mr. Murie, you heard from Chief Bates that with the legalization of marijuana we're going to see more impaired driving. Is that your conclusion as well?

[Andrew Murie]

That's been the experience in the U.S. states that have legalized, but we also have to take into consideration that when they legalized in the mess that they did, through a ballot, the police didn't have any tools when legalization came in.

[Rob Nicholson, Conservative, Niagara Falls, ON]

Or any choice....

[Andrew Murie]

They didn't have the ability to use oral fluids. Their per se levels were set without science and without a lot of thought.

We also have the ability in Canada to have provincial sanctions at the administrative level that support this. Our alcohol programs kick in. They can be very effective. If you look at the situation in British Columbia, where they do a three-day vehicle impoundment and three-day licence suspension for somebody in the “warn” range, it has reduced alcohol-related deaths by 50%. If we could put those types of things in place for drugs as well, simply on a failed standard field sobriety test, or a failed oral fluid test, or some combination of those, it will make us much more effective here compared with the U.S. experience.

[Rob Nicholson, Conservative, Niagara Falls, ON]

One of the examples you gave us from some roadside interventions was that they're not picking up the people who are around .05 to .079 I think it was. Isn't that going to be even more complicated if the person may have smoked a joint or two? Their alcohol level wouldn't go up, and the police would have to try to determine whether the person was impaired or not.

[Andrew Murie]

In a lot of police procedure—especially with the introduction of mandatory alcohol screening—if they can get an individual above the “warn” range, the sanctions are the same, and it's an easier procedure. They'll simply go with the alcohol at the roadside, so that makes it fairly easy.

If there's no alcohol present, they'll go on to the possibility that there might be drugs involved at the roadside. Those provincial sanctions are unique for us here.

[Rob Nicholson, Conservative, Niagara Falls, ON]

Are you satisfied that with provincial sanctions you can live with the legalization of marijuana? I take it that's what you're saying?

[Andrew Murie]

With one provision—that our provinces have all these things in place by July 1.

[Rob Nicholson, Conservative, Niagara Falls, ON]

Do you think they will?

[Andrew Murie]

I think a lot of provinces are working really hard and working on that deadline.

[Rob Nicholson, Conservative, Niagara Falls, ON]

Chief, you mentioned that you're concerned about that.