Justice committee  You asked about the overall numbers that would be required. When we look at the drug recognition expert, we basically compare them to the evidentiary breath technician, the person who operates the breath-testing instrument. There are currently 2,600 breath techs in Canada. We're sitting with about 250 trained for drug impairment, and if we look at them as being on an equal footing, we'd be looking, overall, in the long term, to make the same number of people trained as DREs, so somewhere in the neighbourhood of 2,600 to 3,000.

Justice committee  A drug recognition expert has specific training in the indicia of drugs as well as psychophysical tests and clinical indicators. Roadside, the person has been stopped for some reason. They are put through divided attention tests, the standardized field sobriety test battery. That will show if the person is impaired by something.

Justice committee  First of all, for the impairing levels of marijuana or other drugs, one of the problems they're running into is the same as we have with alcohol. Although the permissible level in Canada is 80 milligrams percent or 0.08, everybody is different. We have people who can be grossly impaired at 0.02, and cannot even be suspended in any province in Canada, and other people who show very little impairment at 200.

Justice committee  There are 46 states and the District of Columbia currently in the drug evaluation and classification program, and the other states are either in the process of applying to it or being certified as a DECP state.

Justice committee  There was a study done by the Southern California Research Institute about 10 years ago. A study was also done in Arizona, and one in Minnesota, and we are currently in the process of doing one here in Canada. We just finished one, looking at the evaluations. We've done it, to date, in Canada to see how accurate the evaluators are compared to the toxicology samples that have been attained.

Justice committee  Exactly. It would be both training and operational. They were all done by DREs in Canada.

Justice committee  It is.

Justice committee  Certainly.

Justice committee  Certainly.

Justice committee  We currently have sufficient funds for this fiscal year. For ongoing sustainability and expansion of the program, we would require additional funding. Part of the problem we have is the capacity to deliver the training. There are currently two full-time instructors in this program, and two more should be coming online very soon, seconded from other police agencies.

Justice committee  The drug evaluation and classification program we are currently running is the same program we were running with the previous Bill C-16, and before that with the first Bill C-32. The $4.6 million that was announced as being cut wasn't really cut, because we never had it. A total of $7 million over three years was tied to Bill C-16.