Justice committee  Thank you.

Justice committee  Thank you. I want to thank the other presenters for their comments, and I certainly echo what they've said about random breath testing. As a Métis I am very concerned about how this is going to affect people from the aboriginal community. We see in B.C. already basically an offe

Justice committee  I'd like to pick up on what Mr. Spratt is saying. There's also the comment he made about the right to counsel. We just went through this in the Supreme Court of Canada in 2005 because of the refusal to comply offence. The Supreme Court of Canada in R. v. Orbanski and R. v. Elias

Justice committee  I don't mean to say that we don't have a problem with impaired driving. It's that we don't have a problem that needs a solution because we already have a solution that is working. If you look at the Statistics Canada numbers, the rates of impaired driving, and the way that the pr

Justice committee  There's always going to be a problem with impaired driving. If you create a different legislative scheme, it's not going to stop impaired driving. Statistics and studies into decreasing rates of impaired driving have found that really the only mechanisms that consistently work a

Justice committee  I don't see this law as changing that. Yes, there are people who are being injured and people whose lives are being lost, and that's incredibly tragic, but we can't put that ahead of the charter. I know that's a difficult thing to think about, and I know that's a controversial st

Justice committee  I don't see how he can come to a conclusion that it doesn't offend section 8 and it doesn't offend section 9 when our Supreme Court of Canada has already ruled that the measures now in place offend section 8 of the charter, that the measures now in place offend section 10(b) of t

Justice committee  Our brief cited Orbanski and Elias. It cited Thomsen. It cited a number of Supreme Court of Canada decisions finding that approved screening device testing violates.

Justice committee  I'm very curious to know how they determined that number, if they're getting away without being detected.

Justice committee  Right, but statistics can be easily manipulated to say what you want them say. The fact is that if we have a legal system in place that appropriately balances charter rights and that appropriately deals with the issue of impaired driving while maintaining charter rights, some peo

Justice committee  I think another issue, too, is that we'd have to look at the location where these random checks are being set up. If you're setting them up in communities that are primarily populated by minorities, if you're setting them up at the exit to the reserve every week, that's going to

Justice committee  I made the point earlier about the officer in British Columbia who was charged and convicted of obstruction for doing just that, but I find in my interviews with my clients it doesn't come up often because it doesn't occur that often. Most people who go out and drink aren't enga

Justice committee  The difference is I agree that the measures in the bill will make it more likely that people will get caught and also more likely that people will be convicted, but I disagree that it will have an effect on the minds of people when they are in the moment, because there's a thing

Justice committee  I've had a couple of people try to run it in the immediate roadside prohibition context, but never in criminal court. It has never been something that a client who has been criminally charged with impaired driving has told me they have done and that I've had to run.

Justice committee  Thank you. On my behalf and that of my colleague, Ms. Leamon, I'd like to thank the committee for having us here today. I'm going to deal with the provisions of Bill C-51 that address the sexual assault changes to the law. In particular, one of the elements that concern us is