Mr. Speaker, I rise today to affirm my support for Motion No. 148. I thank the member for Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel for bringing this forward.
There was considerable consensus in the House when we had our initial discussion on this motion back in November. It is truly a positive step.
While it is highly commendable to promote awareness, I wish to use some of my time today to encourage the government to go further. We must do all we can to minimize preventable tragedy and keep our roads safe for Canadians.
Driving is not a constitutional right; it is a privilege, a privilege that must be denied those who act recklessly by driving impaired. We need to give serious consideration to concrete, measurable ways so this behaviour can be deterred and ultimately eliminated. I will revisit this a little later.
Committing to additional awareness campaigns about the perils of drug, alcohol, and distracted driving is a good place to start. We have seen that these initiatives work. Data from Statistics Canada shows that in 2015 the rate of alcohol impaired driving was 201 incidents per 100,000 population. That was the lowest rate since data on impaired driving was first collected in 1986, down 65% and 4% lower than in 2014.
After decades of awareness, it is now widely accepted that alcohol impaired driving is wrong and that it causes considerable harm. However, as we move forward toward the legalization of cannabis, we must acknowledge that many individuals do not believe drug-impaired driving is quite so serious. Anything that impairs reactions and judgment will have detrimental effects on the ability to drive. Impairment is impairment.
Recently, I heard Dr. Robert Solomon interviewed by CBC's Michael Enright about impaired driving. Dr. Solomon, a legal expert who has done considerable research on impaired driving, also testified at the justice committee. He pointed that 16 to 24 year olds represented 13% of the population but accounted for one third of the cannabis users.
Canadian youth are already the leading demographic for rates of impaired driving. The high instance of cannabis use paired with the already high rate of impaired driving warrants our attention. Additionally, perhaps most disconcertingly, the perception that drugs will not impair driving is prevalent among young Canadians.
As the Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction says:
The challenge is many youth do not consider driving under the influence of marijuana to be risky, unlike driving under the influence of alcohol. Some youth even believe that using marijuana makes them better drivers, but evidence clearly shows that it impairs driving ability....more awareness campaigns that centre on youth are needed to deter them from driving while impaired, especially after using marijuana.
A national study by the Partnership for a Drug Free Canada provides further evidence to that effect, writing, “Nearly one third (32%) of teens did not consider driving under the influence of cannabis to be as bad as alcohol.”
Further to this point, in an article published in the National Post in 2016, “About half of pot-smoking Canadians who get behind the wheel while high believe the drug doesn’t impair their ability to drive safely — and 20 per cent say nothing would make them stop driving while stoned.”
People can see that an unfortunate number of factors are converging here. We have Canadian youth with already high rates of impaired driving, high cannabis use, and the belief that drugs will not cause impairment. Clearly, this needs to be addressed. Awareness will help but let us not stop there. Let us also consider measures and practices that will deter impaired driving in all forms.
I supported Bill C-46, which, among other measures, would allow police to administer roadside mandatory alcohol screening, MAS, as a way to apprehend all drivers at the stop who were impaired. Dr. Solomon was quite clear in his testimony on this, that testing every driver at a stop instead of relying on subjective discretion saves lives. It increases the likelihood of an impaired driver being apprehended. The practice deters impaired driving since drivers know they will be tested.
While this practice may give some pause, I reiterate that driving is a privilege not a constitutional right.
MAS is used successfully in many European countries as is illustrated by the submission to the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights that Dr. Solomon co-authored. In it he wrote, “When Switzerland enacted MAS in 2005, the percentage of drivers testing positive for alcohol fell from about 25% to 7.6%, and alcohol-related crash deaths dropped by approximately 25%.”
Folks are less likely to engage in a behaviour if they know there is a greater probability of being caught. Dr. Solomon's submission to the committee goes on to say, “A 2013 study reported that MAS prevented an estimated 5,309 crash deaths in four Australian states over a 27-year period and was particularly effective in reducing crash deaths among 17-30 year olds.”
Lives are being saved by this practice. Mandatory alcohol screening is no doubt effective, but we are still debating a suitable equivalent for drug impaired driving. Such a device needs to be reliable, efficient, and ideally inexpensive for police forces. These are the kinds of measures that I believe are necessary in order to go further than awareness campaigns.
I will conclude by reiterating my support for my honourable colleague's motion, but I also want to remind members that we have a long way to go. We have a long way to go in terms of addressing persistent misconceptions around the harmfulness of drug impaired driving, and we have a long way to go to implement effective practices that will save Canadian lives.