Mr. Speaker, I was not expecting to have my concluding five minutes today, but I do thank you for the opportunity.
I would like to start by commenting on the response to my bill given by the bureaucrats in the justice department and presented by the parliamentary secretary.
In fact, I am really quite shocked by the presentation given by the parliamentary secretary, because he seems quite satisfied, according to his presentation, to see people walk away when they are clearly guilty of impaired driving, even when they have caused death and injury. He seems satisfied. Granted, that is based on a report from justice department officials, but he should research the reports he presents before he presents them. He seems satisfied to just allow those guilty of impaired driving to walk away on a technicality.
Most people across the country see that as wrong. That is why I believe this bill should be supported by the House. I hope that it will be. A vote will determine that.
In his presentation, the parliamentary secretary said that there could be some charter problems, but the lawyers who have done the work on putting this bill together do not believe there would be a charter problem. It would be very unlikely. Anytime the government seems determined to stop good work, a good piece of legislation, it points to the charter right away, saying that it could be a charter problem.
I would like to remind the member that in fact Parliament is the top court in the land and it should be determined here in the House of Commons, by the members of the House of Commons, whether a piece of legislation passes or not. It should not be the courts. It should not be the government's first response to say that we have to go to the courts to get a ruling on the charter just in case, even when it is unlikely that the charter will interfere, yet that is the major excuse that the parliamentary secretary used to oppose this.
He knows--he has to know--that again and again across this country people walk free after clearly being guilty of drunk driving, with no doubt whatsoever. The tests show it. These tests are scientific tests. They are breath tests, which have been proven to be quite reliable, and they are blood tests, which have been proven to be extremely reliable.
Yet here is what the parliamentary secretary, or at least his justice department officials, are willing to allow in regard to these individuals. For example, Mr. Speaker, if you were guilty of driving impaired, you may well, so that you would not lose your licence, get the best lawyer you could and try to get off the hook. That is kind of understandable. A lot of people would do that. So when we have loopholes in legislation that allow people just on their own word to say they could not have been driving impaired and they will take it to the judge, this is what happens. Although the tests all show that they were impaired, although the police evidence shows that they certainly appeared to be impaired, in spite of that, due to this technicality or that technicality such as the Carter defence or the last drink defence that I talked about, their word overrides the evidence of these scientific tests.
It is absurd that the member would stand here in the House and say it is okay to allow only the word of the accused to override the scientific evidence. It is wrong. In fact, I hope members of the governing side will stand with opposition members to support this bill. Let us send it off to committee. The member can take that type of thinking to committee and members of the committee will determine whether there is validity to it or not. I am convinced and I know that there simply is not.
I would really encourage all members in the House to support this legislation, understanding that its sole purpose is to close these ridiculous loopholes that have allowed impaired drivers to get off the hook again and again.