Justice committee  I will be addressing the amendments in paragraphs 258(1)(c), (d), (d.01), and (d.1) of the code. These are dealing with what is commonly known as evidence to the contrary. The proposed amendment will require an accused person to show either machine malfunction or improper operat

Justice committee  That was my conclusion.

Justice committee  And if I could add one thing, remember that there are two drinking-and-driving offences. There are impaired driving and over 80 milligrams. If someone exhibits physical signs of impairment, and the test for that in Canada is whether their ability to operate a motor vehicle is eve

Justice committee  I don't think any jurisdiction has passed a law, a criminal law, which puts such a burden upon an accused. But what I can tell you is every time they make the penalties harder for drinking and driving, people fight these things harder and harder. The most significant amendment in

Justice committee  Well, it may not be for no reason. Quite often the police get calls that there is some bad driving on the road, and with their obligation to investigate that, they show up and they do knock on the door. But on this post-drinking conduct, the example I gave was showing up at the d

Justice committee  Why would they do that? People do a lot of stupid things, but just because they do something like that--

Justice committee  Let me try to answer all of your questions. The difficulty is that by making a general law or a general rule, as you say, you're going to convict innocent people. I invite you to find another provision in this Criminal Code where people who are factually innocent--someone who d

Justice committee  That's right. And do we want to really create a piece of legislation that is forcing judges and taking away their job to analyse the facts--

Justice committee  No, I'm not saying whether they're charged inappropriately; I'm saying we have courts to determine whether or not they are guilty. Anything that forces a judge to convict someone who is factually innocent is a dangerous piece of legislation, sir.

Justice committee  I guess it comes back to one of the basic premises of criminal law, which is that it's better that 10,000 guilty people get off than one innocent person ever get convicted.

Justice committee  I think it's a very dangerous system where we're going to convict innocent people at the expense of not getting some people--

Justice committee  I can say that the vast majority of defences of these cases are not legal aid funded at all. I can tell you, and Mr. Burstein can probably confirm, I'm a wonderful specific deterrent against my client committing these types of offences ever again. I make sure they pay for it in s

Justice committee  I've said it before. The greater you make the penalties the more litigation you create. Certainly I can't complain from that standpoint. That's not why I'm here. I can comment on the drugs. Paul obviously addressed it more than I did. If the police pull someone over--and let's m

Justice committee  I can't tell you what the exact percentage is in Ontario. It does happen. There's certainly a crown policy manual that discourages it. It can only be done in certain situations with the approval of either the acting crown attorney for the jurisdiction or the deputy crown attorney

Justice committee  They're legitimate arguments that happen all the time, because cost is not the issue. For example, someone was talking about the increase of the penalty from $600 to $1,000, but $400 is not going to do a thing. I don't want to get into the exact particulars, but the legal fees