Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to speak to this subject. I know I speak on behalf of my constituents when I stand to address the issue of drunk driving.
I would like to begin by commending the work of one of my constituents, Geraldine Dedrick, who is a very active member of Mothers Against Drunk Driving for the Halifax region. Geraldine faced the terrible tragedy of losing a son to an accident related to drunk driving. I am honoured to stand here to support her efforts and those of countless others who are working today so that people tomorrow may be spared this tragedy.
The whole issue of impaired driving causing death is a very important issue in the province of Nova Scotia. The current president of Mothers Against Drunk Driving is Mr. Pat Dutton, who heads the Halifax, Annapolis Valley and Digby chapters. I commend him for his very important work in this area.
Every day people living in the riding of Halifax West face a very real and possibly fatal threat. Every day in my riding people are concerned about someone they know who may be drinking and driving. I am sure it is the same throughout the province of Nova Scotia and across Canada.
Since the criminal code was amended to deal with persons who drink and drive, it has been estimated that 20,400 Canadians have died at the hands of those who choose to drink and drive. At the same time, up to 1.5 million Canadians have been injured during the time span since these laws were enacted. The death and casualty numbers read like those of war. The government has the tools at hand to reduce this carnage.
I and my colleagues of the New Democratic Party support the review and enactment of legislative measures to enhance deterrents and to ensure that we use the tools of legislation to do what we can to put in place laws to reduce these accidents.
When we talk about this issue, we are not talking about people who have sacrificed their lives for our country or for any higher ideal; we are talking about people who have had their lives or their good health ended because someone chose to drink too much and subsequently turned their vehicle into a terrible weapon out of control.
Even while I am speaking, it is likely that a Canadian will lose his or her life due to drunk driving. An average of more than one Canadian every five minutes is injured due to drunk driving. An average of one Canadian is killed every six hours. This is simply obscene.
While clearly the loss of life and limb is paramount, let us not ignore the incredible toll that this takes on our health care system and the ripple effect on other costs to taxpayers. This is not only an issue of death and injury, it is an issue of responsibility in so many ways.
Clearly the responsibility lies at many levels. There is the level of the individual. We all have individual responsibility in this matter. I have chosen not to drink at all. I know several others who have made this choice. I know there are many other responsible social drinkers who would never climb into a vehicle with anywhere near the legal blood alcohol limit. Then there are others who are social drinkers who occasionally make the wrong choice about drinking and driving. This wrong choice is estimated to be responsible for a death every single day in this country.
Then there are the repeat offenders, many with serious drinking problems who cause much of the carnage.
Then there is the responsibility of the community. More and more communities are banding and working together to change the laws. It is largely due to their efforts that the backwards social philosophy of “one for the road” is increasingly becoming a thing of the past, and we are very thankful for that.
Mothers Against Drunk Driving and many other organizations have become very sophisticated and involved and have done much of our homework in this particular area. It is good to have such community-responsible citizens who are taking up their responsibility to make sure this tragedy does not persist. This enables us as legislators to help address the problems.
There are many small business owners who serve alcohol who are undertaking initiatives in their businesses to curb irresponsible drinking and to reduce the incidence of drunk driving. I commend them for their efforts.
It is foolish to think the entire problem can be legislated away. It is no more than criminal not to make every change we can as parliamentarians to address the loss of life and health through drunk driving accidents. The government should have no fear of addressing this issue if it is concerned about the polls because nine out of every ten Canadians believe this is a problem for the government to address.
Almost three of every four Canadians support lowering the blood alcohol concentration level from 0.08 to 0.05. We would not be breaking any new ground here. Many countries are ahead of us. Australia, Belgium, Finland, Greece, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal and France have all lowered their legal levels to 0.05.
Some provincial governments have taken the lead on this issue. Newfoundland has implemented a 24 hour licence suspension with a $100 licence reinstatement charge if a person's level is over 0.05.
I am pleased to inform the House as to what Nova Scotia has done in this area. As of the beginning of this month, new legislation is in place that has been approved by all the parties in the legislature in Nova Scotia. These new drinking and driving laws taking effect include the immediate 24 hour suspension of a driver's licence for someone pulled over with a blood alcohol level of between 0.05 and the legal limit of 0.08. For the first conviction there is a one year revocation of driving privileges. A second conviction warrants a three year suspension, up from the current two years. Three time offenders will lose their licence for at least 10 years. A fourth time offender will never drive again. These are very important changes under the motor vehicle act of Nova Scotia. They underscore the significance of the whole issue that we are talking about.
Mr. Pat Dutton, president of the Halifax, Annapolis Valley and Digby chapters of Mothers Against Drunk Driving, compared these new laws to a Christmas list being fulfilled. He said: “Today all the things that are being put in place are things that are on our list”.
It is very important to see this kind of involvement by communities, to see the changes that are taking place in various provinces and to see that all this is working together to try to ensure that lives are protected and that people do not suffer needlessly as a result of impaired driving.
The last time I spoke on this matter I indicated the concern among my constituents of Halifax West that there should be the capacity under provincial legislation to confiscate cars involved in these offences. That is a very important issue.
Let us explore in committee the possibility of automatically requesting from drivers breath and/or blood samples in crashes resulting in serious injury or death. Let us review the current two hour presumption limit to obtain a breath or blood sample. Let us review all these things with a view to trying to improve this situation. Let us not be afraid to examine the code, to expand the reasonable or probable grounds on which law enforcement officers can investigate crash scenes that involve death or serious injury.
One of the big concerns in my riding of Halifax West is the extent to which we are able to determine the role alcohol plays in accidents causing death. Let us look at ways to ensure that we know if alcohol has played a part in someone's death or injury due to a traffic accident.
The policy statement Mothers Against Drunk Driving includes this very important phrase: “While an individual's decision to consume alcohol is a private matter, driving after consuming alcohol or other drugs is a public matter”.
I would like to just comment briefly at this point on the impact the whole matter of drunk driving can have upon the lives of families and on the lives of people who are affected.
We need not lose someone through drunk driving to know how serious it is and how much pain one can feel when a loved one is lost. I lost a nephew a number of years ago. He was aged eight. It was as a result of a serious vehicle accident. The young fellow was driving his bicycle on his way home and was crossing a busy highway when a truck hit and killed him. We do not know in that case whether there was alcohol involved, but whether there was alcohol involved or not, the pain is still the same when we lose a young life like that.
I remember this young fellow when I was actively involved in karate. He wanted me to break some boards for him. Sometimes in karate we have a technique where we break one inch boards. He said, “Can you break a board for me, Uncle Gordon?” and I said, “I suppose I could”. He ran down to his basement and came back with a big 2x4. I looked at it and said, “I think maybe I will have to do this on another occasion”. Sadly, the other occasion did not arrive. I did not have the opportunity to break a board for him because his young life was cut short at the age of eight due to the accident.
When we add to that the loss of a loved one through drinking and driving, we can imagine how much more pain and suffering we go through knowing this life did not have to be lost.
Turning to Bill C-18 which deals very specifically with the whole issue, it is an act to amend the criminal code and to deal with the issue of the penalty. This legislation amends the criminal code in order to strengthen impaired driving provisions to ensure a sufficient deterrent effect on potential offenders and that the sanctions to be imposed for offences involving impaired driving reflect the gravity of the offence as well as the degree of responsibility of the offender. Bill C-18 would raise the maximum penalty for impaired driving causing death from 14 years imprisonment to life imprisonment.
The amendments implement recommendations of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights in its report, “Toward Eliminating Impaired Driving”. The committee's recommendations on the provisions of this bill are in response to public pressure spurred by Mothers Against Drunk Driving, police associations, victims groups and members of parliament from all parties.
The NDP fully supports the legislation. The criminal code amendments strengthen the penalties and increase the deterrent values of the impaired driving provisions in the code. The legislation addresses the seriousness of impaired driving in our society by both strengthening the penalties for offenders and increasing the options and powers available to the police and the courts to more effectively combat drunk drivers.
We believe that passing legislation to ensure swift implementation of the new provisions will save lives. It sends a very important message that impaired driving is an avoidable criminal act which carries unacceptable risks of injury and death. In 1985 parliament added the offences of impaired driving causing bodily harm and impaired driving causing death to the criminal code with maximum penalties of 14 years imprisonment where the result is death and 10 years imprisonment where bodily harm is caused.
To the extent that penalties can discourage those who might leave an accident to evade getting caught for impaired driving, the changes to the offence of leaving the scene will send the message that running away from a collision where someone is injured or killed is a very serious behaviour and it carries a serious penalty.
Estimates found there were roughly 1,300 deaths due to impaired driving in 1997. Information from the Traffic Injury Research Foundation study in Ontario suggested impaired drivers comprised 55% of the driving fatalities. The 1999 report by the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia indicated that in each of the years 1995, 1996, 1997 more than 80% of the impaired driving deaths in British Columbia were comprised of impaired drivers and their passengers.
The NDP would like to see zero tolerance on drinking and driving on our streets and that these horrible statistics be greatly reduced or eliminated so future generations of Canadians need not suffer the horrible losses of this terrible crime.
It is incumbent upon all of us as individuals to do what we can to try—especially as we approach this holiday season when we know a lot of people engage in frivolity, in celebrations and quite often in drinking too much—to exercise due care and responsibility to ensure that lives are not needlessly lost on the highways.