Justice committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair, honourable members. The Criminal Lawyers' Association welcomes the opportunity to appear before the standing committee on what is obviously a fundamentally important study. Our organization represents 1,000 criminal defence lawyers across the Province of O

Justice committee  Maybe I'll take over that question from a constitutional perspective. Ultimately, one of the key features of the balancing act is a penalty that involves jail. So yes, if you structure a penalty system that removes the possibility of jail and reduces it to a fine or suspension,

Justice committee  No--

Justice committee  The Supreme Court of Canada, thankfully, is on my side on the issue of detention, in the sense that they have spoken very clearly, and for 20-plus years at this stage, and have said that stopping a motorist is a detention from a constitutional perspective.

Justice committee  Well, so far to date, yes, the balance has been struck. We say it's been struck because you need reasonable and probable grounds to arrest and because you need reasonable suspicion. You need some basis for asking for a breath sample, right? But leaving aside the detention issue,

Justice committee  If I could offer my clients an incentive either to plead guilty early or to not fear the consequences—and the biggest one they ask about is the ability to drive—if I could tell them I can get them back driving, albeit in a manner that is controlled and safe, with the use of an in

Justice committee  I'd be happy to help on that latter question. The primary concern for most people is the ability to drive, because it's usually the contingent factor on their employment. We'll often get clients who come in, for example, a truck driver with a family, and the only way to support

Justice committee  Let me just add a few minor points. One is to add flexibility to the criminal justice system, because right now there's inflexibility, which leads to an insistence on trials in drunk driving cases and an insistence on fighting these cases tooth and nail to the very end. If ther

Justice committee  If you look at the section 9 jurisprudence, it's the arbitrariness, which is defined by randomness, that is actually the nature of the charter violation. Tied to that, we know from all the case law coming back earlier, on the section 1 analysis, that randomly stopping motorists f

Justice committee  Well, if you stopped everyone on the street and demanded every time you get in the car you need to provide a breath sample, apart from moving a step closer to a Big Brother police state—it is a step closer to that, but leaving that aside—it would no longer be random; it would be

Justice committee  You can already charge. Right now, if you can prove that a person was drinking alcohol following a motor vehicle accident in order to frustrate the taking of the test later, if you can establish that, you can already charge them with obstructing justice or obstructing a police of

Justice committee  Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. The Criminal Lawyers' Association welcomes the opportunity to appear before this committee on the important issue raised in Bill C-48. As many of you know, the Criminal Lawyers' Association is a not-for-profit organization founded in 1971. We rep

Justice committee  I have many times.

Justice committee  I'd agree 100%.

Justice committee  Yes.