Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for his question, and I thank the Liberals and the New Democrats for their co-operation in committee as we looked at improving and strengthening this bill.
I think every member in this House knows somebody who has been impacted, either through family members, through loved ones or through neighbours or friends, by drunk drivers. The reality is that we need to do what we can to educate our youth, when they are going through the system of learning how to drive, on the implications of drinking and driving. One of the things we would do here by having a tougher penalty is we would drive home to youth and to the people who are learning how to drive the importance of not drinking and driving, and that there are serious consequences if drivers should proceed to act that way.
The reality is, as I said, that 50% of motor vehicle fatalities are of people with over a blood alcohol content of 0.08%. If we look at the fact that there are drivers with blood alcohol content of 0.16%, these people are causing half the fatalities on the road. They need to be taken off the road.
There is no question whether they are drunk. When drivers are at blood alcohol content of 0.16% or higher, they are two sheets to the wind. They are not in a situation where they should be driving any vehicle, whether it is a car, a boat, a motorcycle or any type of vehicle that is operating. The reality is they should never be in that scenario. In this case, we would address those people and ensure that they are not going to get behind the wheel and hurt somebody else, because they tend to be repeat offenders.