Public Safety Committee on Sept. 27th, 2016

[Greg Yost]

The consequences would be the same if they were stopped by a police officer. The question is whether the police could set up checkpoints for all sorts of vehicles in a rural setting. There are also all kinds of vehicles in Toronto. Police officers can set up checkpoints almost anywhere. On the road I use regularly in Ontario—Highway 17 between Marathon et Wawa—there aren't many towns and villages.

[Bernard Généreux, Conservative, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

I understand what you are trying to say. Clearly, the consequences will be the same. Random testing is essentially the most important change in this bill. If I have understood correctly, MADD has some apprehensions over that, or it's the other way around. I'm no longer sure.

You said earlier that random testing was done in a number of countries. In particular, you were thinking of the Australian legislation. Are there any fundamental differences between the current laws in Australia or other countries and the legislation we will potentially pass here, in Canada?

[Greg Yost]

What's in Bill C-226 is based on the Australian model and not on the legislation in Ireland, where major road testing is carried out, there are advertisements, and so on.

[Bernard Généreux, Conservative, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

Thank you.

Ms. Damoff, go ahead for five minutes.

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Oakville North—Burlington, ON]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Yost, in your testimony to the Justice and Human Rights Committee you talked about random breath testing in relation to the European Commission as part of their strategy to reduce fatal car accidents. I saw numbers like Ireland with a 28% decrease in fatalities, New Zealand with a 30% decrease, and Australia with a 35% decrease. That was part of the series of measures that they took, and there wasn't simply random breath testing. I'm wondering if you could speak to that just a bit so that we can get a sense of what we're missing by only dealing with random breath testing.

[Greg Yost]

I think you are absolutely correct.

One of the problems with the research is that in Australia, random breath testing was brought in along with lowering the BAC to 0.5, with high publicity, and enforcement, etc. The state of Victoria has something like eight “booze buses”. They're out on the road every day, and they do somewhere in the neighbourhood of three million breath tests in a state that has a population of about six million. Just about every driver is being tested, so, yes, there's no question that no matter what you put in the law, if you don't have enforcement, then it's not going to work.

The Irish experience is interesting, because they brought in 0.5 first, and then they brought in their former random breath testing. You could divide those two. Random breath testing is one of the measures, but it's a relatively small country. I have the numbers here. They do about 70,000 road checkpoints a year. That's a couple of hundred every day.

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Oakville North—Burlington, ON]

Would you be able to provide us with those numbers?

[Greg Yost]

They are all taken from the website of the Garda, so I can certainly do that. In 2008, they had 18,013 for “driving while intoxicated”, which was reduced to 7,962. Traffic fatalities went from 279 to 188. This is what I was talking about: 78,290 MAT—which is their way of saying RBT—checkpoints were set up in that country, so more than 200 a day. You're very likely to run into a checkpoint in Ireland, and that has an enormous effect.

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Oakville North—Burlington, ON]

We don't know whether that, in isolation, is going to work as well as the suite that was provided.

[Greg Yost]

No. One of the studies in New Zealand, which I believe was referenced by the standing committee, made an effort to break down the 49% reduction they had, and it attributed 22% of it to RBT and 20-some per cent to the lowering of the BAC, etc. It is a difficult thing to break up.

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Oakville North—Burlington, ON]

My other question is to you, Mr. Dakalbab. Part of this bill deals with mandatory minimums. For impaired driving charges, do you have the resources to reintegrate these people back into society when they leave? Obviously, our goal is to send people out so that they don't drive impaired again. Do we have programs in place and the resources to actually do that for people who are sentenced for impaired driving?

[Talal Dakalbab]

Thank you for asking. Obviously, at the Parole Board we don't manage the sentence, and we don't supervise. We really just make the decisions.

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Oakville North—Burlington, ON]

But you require programs for people when they are released, do you not?

[Talal Dakalbab]

Usually programming helps to address some of the factors that might contribute to their criminality, but not always. There are other tools available, such as follow-ups and treatments, and they could do them in the community sometimes.

Our role, really, is to assess the risk according to the criteria and the law in the CCRA. Obviously, CCRA is something else.

For us, these changes don't really impact our decisions. We address whatever offenders are in the system. We look at them separately and according to the law.

The programming will be something that CSC will provide, but from our end, there are the same risk assessment criteria.

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Oakville North—Burlington, ON]

I think they are coming to see us.

I think I have only a few seconds left.

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

Do you want the seven seconds?

Mr. Liepert has a question.

[Ron Liepert, Conservative, Calgary Signal Hill, AB]

I have one question, and then I'll let my colleague Mr. Miller finish his questioning from earlier.

I just heard you mention briefly the 0.05 somewhere. I think it was about four years ago that Alberta brought in 0.05. In Alberta, at 0.05, I believe you lose your vehicle and your keys for three or four days. You are not charged with impaired driving, but it's sort of that warning step.

Do you have any evidence that this has been helpful, or is there anything you could add relative to what has happened in those four or five years in Alberta?

[Greg Yost]

I don't have anything for Alberta at my fingertips. British Columbia did something very similar. In British Columbia, if you are over 0.08, they will take your vehicle for about 30 days, I believe. The British Columbia fatalities dropped sharply. I believe the same thing has happened in Alberta.

The administrative sanctions—which I am pleased to say I pioneered in Manitoba more than 30 years ago now—are immediate, and they are effective. People don't like losing their cars. They don't like having their driver's licence pulled. They don't like having to pay several hundred dollars to get back on the road. I understand that, in British Columbia, it can cost you approximately $4,000 to get back on the road if you are over 0.08. They very often prefer to proceed by the administrative procedure. It's faster and very effective, from what we can see.

The number of Criminal Code charges in British Columbia has dropped. The number of administrative suspensions has gone up. However, whether to introduce those measures is a decision that provinces make.

[Ron Liepert, Conservative, Calgary Signal Hill, AB]

I understand that, but I guess the question becomes whether this is the answer or there are other potential answers to reduce drunk driving. That's what I was getting at.

[Greg Yost]

There is no one answer. This may be part of the answer. More enforcement would be part of the answer. Given the demands on police officers these days and budget problems, I think that's hoping for something that's not likely to happen. Stronger administrative measures are part of the program. Education in the schools, things like MADD does regularly, are definitely part of the solution to the problem.

We've now reached the stage where there appears to be less drinking among the 15- to 21-year-olds than there is pot smoking, so they're less likely to be involved in impaired driving than they were.

There is no silver bullet. This thing would give the police a new tool. It might be useful in the provinces as well, because if they are doing the random breath testing and the person turns out not to be over 0.08 but is over a provincial limit of 0.05, they can impose sanctions for that, as well.

[Larry Miller, Conservative, Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON]

Stiffer penalties have been put in place, certainly in Ontario and I'm sure across other provinces. There's also education. When I say education, I'll admit that when I was as young as my boys are, at one time, everybody took a drink. It was like smoking. Smoking today is unacceptable inside buildings and whatever. My kids and their friends wouldn't think of driving drunk today. They get a designated driver

. Are stiffer penalties going to do it? Will it be education?

Do you have any comments on that?

[Greg Yost]

I don't think even MADD would say that stiffer penalties are what we need. We have stiffened the penalties repeatedly over the years, from a $300 fine for a first offence to putting people in jail for a second and third offence. The penalties are high by the time you add what your insurance is going to do to you, etc. I don't think anyone coming before this committee will argue that the only thing you need to do is raise penalties. Penalties are high and people are still willing to take their chances.

As for education, I happened to be at MADD's annual general meeting last weekend and I saw their latest movie. It's 15 minutes long, and it's going to go into something like 2,000 high schools thanks to the LCBO—it's raising money for MADD—to bring this message to the students. That's a vital part as well.

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

I need to stop you there.

We have six minutes left, so I think we're going to have time for Mr. Di Iorio.

I have one question, as the chair, that I'd like to ask. Is there in this bill, or somewhere in the Criminal Code, a definition of the word “random”? What is the legal definition of the word “random”, and where could I find it?

[Greg Yost]

There is nothing that says “random” in this bill. It's called mandatory alcohol screening, which is what the Irish call it. Random breath testing is what the Australians decided to call it, and because they were the first, it's RBT.

There have been court cases dealing with whether something was truly random, or whether in fact they were picking people based on inappropriate criteria, such as ethnicity, colour, and those things. There's nothing in this bill that—