Justice committee  Thank you. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for having me. The alcohol test committee, or the ATC, of the Canadian Society of Forensic Science has provided scientific advice to the Minister of Justice about detection and quantification of blood alcohol concentrations for th

Justice committee  It is a fair assessment. I make that submission based on my knowledge of how long it takes us to do our approvals now on approved screening devices and approved instruments. Through no fault of the volunteers on my committee, it takes quite a long time to get those done. We do

Justice committee  I am not aware of the testing that has been done in other jurisdictions. This is a brand new area for my committee. We would certainly, as one our avenues, look into that. I can tell you that the two approved screening devices I have with me are the ones most commonly utilized

Justice committee  It's fair to say that I'm confident they work. I've tried them myself. I know that they will detect alcohol. However, developing standards for instruments or devices that test environment is very different from developing a standard for testing blood alcohol by way of a direct an

Justice committee  It may have some impact. I'm thinking about the potential for.... I spend a lot of my time in court, and I'm thinking about the potential for suggestion of external environmental influences. Currently with an approved screening device, the officer has a look in the car to make

Justice committee  That could affect the approved screening device test if there had been recent consumption. With this type of detection, I don't think it's much of a leap to suggest that the officers will now be asked if they investigated any spills in the car, if there was anything.... Was the

Justice committee  Yes. I speak from my experience of over 20 years in criminal trials. I'm not suggesting that those things are real possibilities; I'm suggesting that it will have to be carefully assessed so that we can be ready for challenges of that nature. Part of that may be deciding what s

Justice committee  I think it's possible. The mouthwash I tested yesterday in my lab certainly did. I didn't swish it around my mouth and spit it out and try it that way, but I waved the passive detector over the top of it.

Justice committee  Well, as I say, at 6 o'clock in the morning, I wasn't using mouthwash in the lab, but I did open the bottle we have in our breath testing room—we use it for testing our instruments and demonstrating to police officers—and both of the devices I had reacted to it. It was in close p

Justice committee  Certainly not as primary evidence in court. I don't think you can correlate passive detection with blood alcohol in a person's body. It certainly gives you further evidence that there is alcohol in the vicinity, and the likelihood is that it is coming from his body. However, as I

Justice committee  I don't think there is any doubt that officers can and do make mistakes. I think false negatives are certainly a possibility. False positives are also a possibility, because of certain odours that may be mistaken for alcohol. I am not called to the bar, nor am I a lawyer of a

Justice committee  —but certainly the odour is not the only thing that is used in forming reasonable suspicion to demand a screening device. I've heard enough trials to know that. This wouldn't be much different from that, but it adds another layer. I should comment at this point that something I'

Justice committee  I have never been shy in writing my budgets to ask for more money. With our current staffing, we're nine members. We should be at 10; one member has finished their term. With our current staffing level and the volunteer nature of our activities, that's why I'm opining years. If

Justice committee  Not without studying them and testing them. Scientists are driven with data, and I do not have the data to assist this committee at this time.

Justice committee  Well, certainly I can speak somewhat to the temperature issue. That paper is American, so I think they said it was 48 degrees, which we all know to be Fahrenheit. These devices—at least the ones I'm familiar with, and the ones I would recommend—utilize fuel cell technology as th