JURI Committee Meeting

STANDING COMMITTEE ON JUSTICE AND HUMAN RIGHTS

COMITÉ PERMANENT DE LA JUSTICE ET DES DROITS DE LA PERSONNE

EVIDENCE

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

Tuesday, March 2, 1999

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[English]

The Chairman (Mr. John Maloney (Erie—Lincoln, Lib.)): Order, please.

In convening the meeting this morning, I'd like to welcome our witnesses: from the Canada Safety Council, Emile Therien, Raynald Marchand and Ethel Archard; from the Insurance Bureau of Ontario, Mark Yakabuski and Stan Griffin; from the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia, Greg Basham; and from the Canadian Council of Motor Transport Administrators, Janice Schmidt.

Our numbers are reduced this morning because a subcommittee of our members is travelling and reviewing the Corrections and Conditional Release Act. But they'll have copies of the material, and we will be talking with them on their return next week.

The routine this morning would be our four presentations, which I would ask you to limit to roughly 10 minutes—because we have so many, I'll probably have to cut you off shortly thereafter—and then we will go to questioning from other sides of the table.

Mr. Therien or Mr. Marchand, would you like to start off?

Mr. Emile-J. Therien (President, Canada Safety Council): Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you very much for allowing the Canada Safety Council to appear before your committee today in the process of reviewing the Criminal Code sections on impaired driving. My opening comments are also captured in my letter dated February 11 to Mr. Roger Préfontaine, a clerk of your committee, which accompanied our submission.

It has now been over 14 years since those sections of the Criminal Code were last reviewed. The 1985 amendments have proven ineffective and counterproductive. The law leaves the public vulnerable to dangerous chronic offenders who either cannot be convicted because of loopholes and technicalities or reoffend after fulfilling their sentence. The harsher penalties prescribed in 1985 are not protecting the public from these recidivists. The current hearings must not perpetuate poorly conceived public policy based on emotion and political expedience. Reality and factual information must be the basis for any change, otherwise bad and ineffective law will again be the result.

We do not want to come to a review in another few years to find that once again the amendments created more problems than they solved. Failure to address the underlying issues will obstruct safety and undermine the efforts of those in public health and safety, enforcement, criminal justice and others dedicated to reducing the toll of impaired driving.

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The amendments must aim to reduce the harm caused by repeat DWI offenders, who are involved in a disproportionate number of motor vehicle crashes, deaths and injuries in this country. The majority of drinking and driving problems are caused by persons who habitually drive with BACs more than double the current 80 mg% limit, or .08.

Some claim the legal limit must be lowered. Aside from the fact that police cannot adequately enforce the current limit, legislators must not be fooled into thinking hard-core drinking drivers will suddenly be motivated to obey a new lower limit.

The committee's review of Canada's impaired driving law is long overdue. We urge you to use this opportunity to develop a truly effective law that will really protect Canadians.

Allow me now to proceed with our submission.

Why is a review needed? Impaired driving, without question, is one of Canada's greatest social problems. Impaired driving causes over twice as many deaths in Canada as homicide, and far exceeds violent assault as a cause of serious injuries. An impaired driving incident does not represent an isolated error in judgment; it takes between 200 and 2,000 repetitions of drunk driving to produce but one arrest.

The Canada Safety Council estimates—and on the very low side—that there are at least 16 million incidents of drunk driving every year across this country. Of the 3,064 fatalities on Canadian roads in 1997, an estimated 40% were alcohol related. This represents over 1,200 fatalities.

In 1997, police laid over 84,000 charges for impaired operation of a vehicle. In 1994, convictions for impaired driving with a blood-alcohol concentration or BAC of over 80 mg% resulted in 14,108 prison sentences. The average was 21 days. The longest sentence served was 1,825 days, or almost six years. This represents a huge human and financial cost to all Canadians.

The impaired driving sections of the Criminal Code were last amended in December 1985. The 1985 amendments were ineffective. Although impaired driving charges have dropped drastically since that time, a study by the Traffic Injury Research Foundation, TIRF, found no evidence that this reduction is related to the 1985 amendments.

The ineffectiveness of the amendments was attributed to lack of public awareness, inadequate implementation, unexpected counterproductive effects, and an emphasis on harsh penalties without considering the certainty and swiftness of their application. Based on these findings, the Canada Safety Council has been in the forefront of organizations calling for a review of the law. This has included public statements, correspondence with federal government officials and elected representatives, and the organization of a stakeholder consultation on this issue, which was held in January 1998.

The council urges the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights to make the law more effective by ensuring that it can and will be enforced and that sanctions will be applied.

Public health and safety, not emotion and political expedience, must be the purpose. Amendments must reflect the reality of this social problem. They must be based on objective research and proven countermeasures, with the objective of protecting the public and reducing recidivism. Impaired driving is a very complex problem; it will not be solved simply by amending the Criminal Code.

The council advocates a multi-faceted approach, including regulation, federal and provincial; enforcement; public awareness; sentencing; and rehabilitation. This council has long maintained that public resources dedicated to control and address this problem are inadequate when weighed against the threat posed by impaired drivers.

We must ensure that the law can and will be enforced. DWI charges across Canada dropped by 22% between 1990 and 1994, yet research shows that the incidence of impaired driving was in fact increasing in that period. A recent survey released by Transport Canada and the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, CACP, suggests that front-line officers are laying fewer charges because of difficulties in enforcing the law as it now stands. The law must facilitate the job of the police, respecting the rights of the accused while recognizing the right of the public to be protected against drunk drivers.

Research has continually shown that perception of apprehension is a very, very effective deterrent. If people believe they will be caught, they are far less likely to offend. Visible, effective enforcement has proven without a doubt to be critical in the fight against impaired driving.

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Our recommendations are as follows.

First, enable the courts to convict the guilty and uphold the legality of DWI countermeasures. Eliminate loopholes and legal technicalities. It is reliably estimated that from 20% to 40% of DWI charges are dismissed or reduced. The crown may accept the plea of guilty to a lesser charge such as careless driving to keep the offender off the road. This situation puts the public at serious risk from unconvicted offenders who continue to drive impaired. The defences being accepted must be examined, including drunkenness as a defence.

We must consider potential charter challenges. Roadside spot checks reduce the number of drunk drivers on the road. According to a study in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol, published by Rutgers University, which is a state university in New Jersey, for every $1 million spent on enforcement, the community saves about $7.9 million. The only Canadian data in that study were from that B.C. pilot project of province-wide sobriety testing, which was found to have a strong deterrent effect. During the five-month experiment, DWI charges dropped sharply in B.C.; however, they returned to their previous levels when the sweeping program was discontinued.

On October 13, 1998, the Ontario Court of Appeal put on hold its decision on the legality of a provincial law passed in November 1996 that removes drivers from the road immediately and suspends their licences for 90 days if they blow over the legal limit or refuse to give a breath test. It is being challenged on the basis that it violates the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. In the past, courts have upheld the legality of measures to reduce impaired driving, such as RIDE and STEP programs, recognizing the right of the public to be protected against drunk drivers. The Canada Safety Council has expressed a serious concern that a decision to overturn that Ontario law will create a serious setback to the national fight against impaired driving, including the use of roadside sobriety testing and certain administrative sanctions.

Second, we must enforce the current limit; we must not lower it. Most impaired drivers killed in car crashes have BACs of at least 150 mg%, which is almost twice the legal limit. Many of these are hard-core repeat offenders. The risk of impairment leading to crash involvement begins to increase exponentially beyond the .08 level. While impairment begins with the first drink, no benefit has been shown in criminalizing persons with a BAC under the .08 level. Reducing the BAC limit would also have serious economic consequences on the hospitality industry in this country, although that is not a safety issue.

Experience in European countries reveals that lowering the BAC from the established legal limit does not reduce alcohol-related crashes or collisions. Statistics show that for most people whose BAC is below .08, the collision involvement rate is not significantly higher than for non-drinking drivers.

First and foremost, the government must ensure the current BAC can be and is enforced. Returning to an era of prohibition is no solution to the impaired-driving problem.

Third, examine allowing the use of state-of-the-art technologies. As it now stands, the law does not allow police to take advantage of new technology, and I'll list two here. Digital roadside breath-screening devices can now provide very accurate numeric readouts. However, the law does not recognize the results as admissible in court.

Another fact is that secure mobile communications are often available on-site. Yet the law still requires police to bring the suspect to the station for private access to legal counsel.

Our next recommendation is to amend reasonable and probable grounds for alcohol testing. There are occasions when an enforcement officer wishing to administer a roadside breath test or take a subject to the station to test for alcohol may not have the grounds to do so. Involvement in a crash that results in serious injury or death should be accepted as grounds to request a breath or blood sample for testing. This change would save time and administration for officers and the judicial system, and would avoid the need to apply for a bench warrant for a blood sample from injured drivers transported to the hospital.

We must facilitate the requirement for a breath test within two hours of apprehension. The first test of the accused on an approved alcohol breath-testing device must be conducted within two hours of the time they were stopped in their vehicle. External factors can make adhering to the two-hour limit very difficult. The time required to reach the police station and to contact counsel are among the difficulties enforcement officers face on a regular basis.

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Although tests administered after the two-hour limit are admissible, they must be accompanied by the testimony of a forensic expert who can extrapolate the BAC reading back to the time the subject was originally stopped. This can be very expensive and time-consuming for both the enforcement agents and the judicial system.

Possible solutions to this include allowing the results from the roadside screening devices to be admissible in court—that was our recommendation 3 earlier—and allowing the officer to administer the approved alcohol breath-testing device immediately upon arrival at the police station before the suspect contacts legal counsel, with the results admissible as evidence only after the accused has contacted counsel. Counsel cannot advise a client to refuse the test. Simply having a law on the books is useless and counterproductive unless that law is strictly enforced and upheld by the courts.

The CACP-Transport Canada survey cited earlier found that DWI ranks fifth in priority among 15 offences, up from eighth in 1981. We are encouraged by this. DWI is a priority for most police management, but human resources are very inadequate. In addition to a law that is enforceable, police and agencies require adequate resources, including training, personnel, and equipment.

Sanctions must protect society and reduce recidivism. Currently Canada has some of the most severe penalties in the world for persons convicted of impaired driving. In some countries, driving while impaired and impaired driving in excess of the legal limit are not considered criminal offences if there is no injury or fatality.

The most serious danger to society is a chronic DWI offender. High-BAC drivers represent about 1% of the cars on the road at night and on weekends, yet they account for nearly half of all the drivers killed at those times. Drivers with a BAC of 150 mg% and higher are over 200 times more likely to be involved in a fatal crash than non-drinking drivers.

These hard-core drinking drivers share several characteristics or traits. First, they drink frequently, and often to excess; many are alcohol dependent. They repeatedly drive after drinking. When they drink and drive, their BAC is two to three times the legal limit. Many have previously been convicted for impaired driving and have driven while suspended. They resist changing their behaviour and are insensitive to anti-drinking-and-driving campaigns.

The hard-core drinking driver presents a complex and resistant safety challenge that calls for a combination of tactics. To protect Canadians from death and injury, sanctions must target these individuals with sentences that will prevent them from continuing to drive impaired.

The Chairman: Excuse me, Mr. Therien, I wonder if we could just highlight your recommendations. We're beyond your time limit.

Mr. Emile Therien: Okay, the recommendations are included.

Our first recommendation is to assess and treat DWI offenders for alcohol problems. I think the meat of our recommendation is in there. The next is to consider BAC level in sentencing. The next one is to examine sentencing options. I think we are leaving a lot to the discretion of the judge or the court. Then we get into things that seem to work well, alcohol ignition interlocks and other things that could be imposed by the judge.

We look at alternatives to incarceration. I think there was a very classic case of a young boy in Windsor a few years ago who was a drinker and was in a car accident that led to the death of his two children. The judge, at his discretion, gave him a community sentence. The impact of that was quite significant and I think very optimistic. That's what we call a restorative justice approach.

Our last point is that education and public awareness are absolutely critical. It's very important the public know what the law is, and that the police know about it and know how to enforce it. It's extremely important that the public buy into any amendments or proposed new law affecting impaired driving.

I thank you very much, Mr. Chair and members.

The Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Therien. That's a very comprehensive presentation.

Next is Mr. Yakabuski from the Insurance Bureau of Canada.

Mr. Mark Yakabuski (Vice-President, Government Relations, Insurance Bureau of Canada): Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Bonjour, monsieur le président. I, too, would like to thank you on behalf of the Insurance Bureau of Canada for the opportunity to appear before this committee to help you in your discussions of a very serious issue, that of impaired driving.

My name is Mark Yakabuski. I'm the vice-president of government relations for the Insurance Bureau of Canada. With me this morning is my colleague, Stan Griffin, who is our vice-president for Ontario.

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We recognize that the committee is looking at a host of important items relating to impaired driving, as listed in the issues paper that was published on your web site, for example.

Today we would like to concentrate on something where we think we have a particular expertise to bring to you this morning, and that is in the area of graduated licensing. Many have contributed to this committee in other ways over the past couple of weeks. We'd like to focus on graduated licensing as an important component of any anti-drinking-and-driving strategy.

[Translation]

The Insurance Bureau of Canada is the national trade association representing private property and casualty (P&C) insurers in Canada. Over 230 companies actively compete to meet the home, auto, and business insurance needs of all Canadians. The P&C insurance industry employs nearly 100,000 people in communities, large and small, across the country.

[English]

Last year the property and casualty insurance industry paid out, for example, $13 billion in claims to Canadians, not to mention the approximately $1.5 billion our industry paid out to those Canadians who suffered damages during the great ice storm of 1998. Therefore, our industry has a sharp and keen sense of responsibility in promoting safer communities.

It is our strong belief that drinking and driving are incompatible activities and that driving while under the influence of either alcohol or drugs, for that matter, constitutes a serious and reprehensible crime. This is true for new drivers, for experienced drivers, for everyone. Drinking and driving simply do not mix. We have promoted this message time and time again.

[Translation]

This is the very reason why the Insurance Bureau of Canada has long been a proponent of road safety in this country. Eliminating impaired driving has always been a fundamental concept for insurers. We have consistently worked in collaboration with provincial governments to reduce aggressive and dangerous driving on Canada's roadways, by encouraging new drivers to learn safe driving techniques.

Erasing the notion that one can drink and then drive, in the minds of young, often impressionable new drivers, is a fundamental pillar of training safe and responsible drivers.

Getting the drivers of tomorrow to understand the deadly nature of mixing alcohol and driving has to be the starting point for eliminating this crime.

[English]

The initiatives our industry has developed particularly regard the implementation of a national graduated licensing system that strikes at the heart of eliminating impaired driving accidents—or incidents, I should say, because no accident is an accident in actual fact. Our efforts in this regard began in 1992, and they have helped to dramatically reduce the number of people killed and injured each year in alcohol-related traffic collisions. IBC strongly believes graduated licensing should be in place across the country to provide novice drivers with both the time and opportunity to gain valuable driving experience gradually under conditions of reduced risk.

[Translation]

Under our graduated licensing proposal, new drivers are accompanied by experienced supervisory drivers for a period of at least one year, while they obtain enough driving experience to earn their complete driver's license on their own. The supervisory driver is someone to learn from and to obtain valuable advice for negotiating the roads in all kinds of situations.

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[English]

A key characteristic of our proposal for graduated licensing is absolute zero tolerance of blood-alcohol content for both new and supervisory drivers, and that's absolutely critical, Mr. Chairman. We believe enforcing a zero tolerance policy for alcohol will develop good habits in new drivers that will last a lifetime. A supervisory driver must also observe a zero tolerance for alcohol to set an example for younger, less experienced drivers. The significance of an alcohol-free role model, and road model, for that matter, cannot be underestimated. The central message is to teach new drivers that drinking and driving can kill them and, if not them, unfortunately, somebody else. One of the things we regret, however, is that none of the provinces that thus far have implemented some system of graduated licensing has fully followed the Insurance Bureau of Canada's recommendation on zero alcohol tolerance.

I'd now like to ask my colleague Stan Griffin, who has really led the fight for graduated licensing in Canada, to give you an overview of the current status of the graduated licensing program across Canada. Stan.

Mr. Stan Griffin (Vice-President, Ontario, Insurance Bureau of Canada): Thank you, Mark, and good morning, Mr. Chairman.

To date, some form of graduated licensing system is in place in six provinces across the country to help reduce the risk of collision for new drivers by requiring them to progress through a tiered or graded licensing process. Ontario, Quebec, British Columbia, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland have programs in place that are a step in the right direction in better preparing new drivers. Most of these programs include such features as—these are kind of core components of most graduated licensing systems—first of all, being accompanied by a licensed or experienced driver; secondly, limiting the number of passengers in the vehicle; thirdly, observing a midnight to 5 a.m. curfew; fourthly, passing a basic road test and, in Ontario, a second, more advanced exit road test; and finally, observing a minimum six-month training period.

However, none of these programs meets IBC's zero tolerance criterion for alcohol. We believe that while the current restrictions are helping to reduce traffic-related accidents, much more needs to be done. A zero tolerance BAC for both new and supervisory drivers is a regulation that must be introduced immediately into the graduated licensing programs across the country.

Ontario, for example, was the first province to introduce graduated licensing in April 1994. It is also the only province that currently enforces any form of blood-alcohol restriction that is less than .05 milligrams on the supervisory driver. All other provinces have no BAC restrictions on supervisory drivers. IBC strongly believes all provinces should take a stronger stand and change their regulations to reflect stricter alcohol regulations. In fact, we have recommended to all provinces that both new and supervisory drivers observe a zero blood-alcohol content.

Statistics show that enforcing zero alcohol tolerance as part of the graduated licensing system will save lives and prevent injuries. In Ontario the Ministry of Transportation conducted an interim review of the graduated licensing system this past July and found the results of the system to be very encouraging. The overall collision rate per 10,000 licensed drivers for 1995 novice drivers—that is, the first group of drivers following the introduction of graduated licensing—is 31% lower than the rate observed for 1993 novice drivers, or the last group of drivers before the introduction of graduated licensing. By contrast, only a 4% drop was observed for the general driving population over the same period. Clearly this is a sign that graduated licensing, when properly implemented, works.

The effect of the alcohol restrictions was also evaluated, and they were found to be very effective. The alcohol restriction has reduced the incidence of novice drivers involved in alcohol-related collisions by 27%. Overall the preliminary evaluation of the Ontario graduated licensing system is very promising. Not only has the graduated licensing system saved millions of dollars in property damage by reducing the number of collisions over the last five years, but according to studies it has also been proven to have saved hundreds of lives in Ontario alone.

We are confident that the number of alcohol-related collisions could be lowered even further if a zero alcohol tolerance is imposed at both the new and supervisory levels by graduated licensing programs in all jurisdictions.

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No doubt the committee is aware of the recent national poll conducted by the Traffic Injury Research Foundation, or TIRF, on drinking and driving in this country. IBC has a representative on the board of directors of TIRF and we have a long-standing relationship with the organization. Its research has revealed that drinking and driving is still an extremely serious problem today.

When in 1999 Canadians are more concerned that they will be hit by a drunk driver than be stricken with cancer or let down by our health care system, we must recognize the severity of this social problem and act to eradicate it. The effect on auto insurance premiums is clear. A driver convicted of impaired driving will not be eligible for insurance in the regular market of the more than 200 companies offering auto insurance for at least three years. The usual market in this instance is the Facility Association, where the premiums are substantially higher than the regular market. In addition, the Facility Association applies a special surcharge of 100% to drivers with a conviction under the Criminal Code of Canada. In addition to this, wherever alcohol is involved, insurance companies will not pay for damage to the vehicle if the driver is found to be at fault.

I'm going to turn it back to Mark Yakabuski to sum up.

Mr. Mark Yakabuski: In summary, Mr. Chairman, the Insurance Bureau of Canada has acted on the need to improve public awareness and understanding about the problem of impaired driving in Canada. Our aim is to teach young and new drivers that drinking and driving just don't mix.

[Translation]

Ensuring that new drivers are accompanied by supervisory drivers, observing a zero-tolerance BAC, provides an example that can achieve a degree of impact unlike any other.

We all know that the public regards impaired driving as one of the most important social issues we face.

[English]

It is precisely for that reason, Mr. Chairman, that I can assure you that the property and casualty insurance industry will continue to do its part to see this social tragedy eliminated from our midst once and for all.

The Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Griffin and Mr. Yakabuski.

At this time I think we'll go to Janice Schmidt. I understand, Mr. Basham, that you have overhead slides. So before we get set up, perhaps we'll go on to Ms. Schmidt and we'll come back to you, sir.

Ms. Janice Schmidt (Chair, Strategy to Reduce Impaired Driving Task Force, Canadian Council of Motor Transport Administrators): Good morning, and thank you very much. I'm pleased to be here this morning representing the Canadian Council of Motor Transport Administrators.

CCMTA is a non-profit organization with a coordinating secretariat here in Ottawa that is comprised of representatives of the provincial, territorial, and federal governments. It deals with driver and vehicle licensing and control as well as highway safety. We work with many associate members as well from the private and non-profit sectors, including the Canada Safety Council, Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, the Canadian Automobile Association, and the Traffic Injury Research Foundation, all of whom I know you have heard from during these proceedings. We work with other government departments as well, such as Justice and Health Canada, in addition to our partners at Transport Canada, in the development of strategies and programs.

Our mandate and reporting relationship is with the Council of Ministers Responsible for Transportation and Highway Safety. So to be clear, we represent primarily the driver licensing and road safety authorities across the country, as opposed to the criminal justice system or enforcement authorities. Two of our key goals are to harmonize policies, regulations, and programs around the country, and to promote awareness of road safety issues.

Personally, I represent the province of British Columbia on the CCMTA standing committee on road safety research and policies and I chair the task force on the strategy to reduce impaired driving. I am employed by the Insurance Corporation of B.C. in Victoria as the manager of road safety planning and development.

The issue of impaired driving has been a high priority for CCMTA and indeed for all jurisdictions for many years. You will know from the previous presentations you have heard that this is a complex issue and one on which even the experts are somewhat divided in their opinions.

Across the country, the licensing and road safety authorities often have different beliefs on exactly the best way to address particular problems. As each jurisdiction must function within its own operating environment and within its own system of law, it is not uncommon to see jurisdictions with differing emphases and varying timeframes for introducing new legislative initiatives. We do, however, share the same goals and the same imperative of reducing the incidence and severity of impaired driving crashes, and we all understand the intense public concern about this problem. As you have already heard from previous speakers, this has proven to be the case once again in recent polls.

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In a recent national public survey commissioned by Transport Canada, most respondents felt that actions to make our roads safer should be a priority for the federal government, and impaired driving headed the list of issues requiring attention. Another national poll on drinking and driving released earlier this month by the Traffic Injury Research Foundation confirmed that drinking and driving is a serious issue for Canadians, with 88% responding that they believe it to be serious or very serious. Indeed, this issue is of greater concern than many other important social issues such as taxes or the health care system, and it is seen as a direct personal threat to the health and safety of Canadians, more so than the possibility of getting cancer or being assaulted. This suggests that the time is right for decisive action on this front.

My presentation will not provide specific recommendations for legislative change. I will leave those to the jurisdictions that have submitted their own briefs on this matter to this committee. I will focus on providing some information on impaired driving programming in place and in development across the country, and give you a sense of the kinds of activities that have proven to be successful so far, in addition to identifying some issues to consider in your decision-making.

In 1990, the Council of Ministers Responsible for Transportation and Highway Safety directed CCMTA to proceed to develop programs to reduce by 20% the percentage of traffic fatalities involving impaired drivers, with a target date of 1995. To achieve this target, CCMTA established a strategy to reduce impaired driving, in concert with federal, provincial and territorial governments, as well as other motor transport organizations. STRID was initiated in order to develop a common infrastucture and approach to the problem of impaired driving. During this first phase, significant progress was made in developing this infrastructure that supports further STRID initiatives, including the development of short- to medium-term plans, the establishment of central coordinating agencies and interagency committees within each jurisdiction, and coordinated enforcement and awareness programs.

The initiative was renewed in 1995 as STRID 2001, with a new mandate now including the reduction of serious injuries in addition to fatalities, with a new target date for 2001. This initiative contains three core elements: enforcement and awareness, legislation, and communication. Specific initiatives to deal with each of these are detailed in our brief, so I won't go through those this morning in the interests of time. In addition to these core initiatives, jurisdictions have also been encouraged to adopt other measures in the areas of education, legislation, and assessment and rehabilitation programs. These are also contained in our brief that the committee received previously.

To date, we have had some success in meeting our objectives. Between 1995 and 1997, improvements were documented in the impaired driving problem. While we cannot attribute all of these changes to the STRID initiative, it is reasonable to assume that the implementation of a number of the STRID elements in different parts of the country has contributed to this success. The gains that have been made include decreases in the percentage of fatally injured drivers who had been drinking, decreases in the percentage of alcohol involvement in motor vehicle fatalities, decreases in the percentage of motor vehicle fatalities involving drinking drivers, and decreases in drivers involved in alcohol-related serious injury crashes.

As demonstrated by the preliminary monitoring reports for 1997, all Canadian jurisdictions have made significant progress in meeting both the core and optional elements of STRID. All jurisdictions now have extensive enforcement and awareness campaigns. All have added additional legislative initiatives or are developing some. Most have some form of education campaign targeting the hospitality industry, police, the crown and the judiciary.

Additional legislative programs that have been introduced include such initiatives as administrative licence suspensions, vehicle impoundment or vehicle seizure programs, ignition interlock, and zero percent blood-alcohol content for novice drivers. Almost all jurisdictions also have some form of mandatory treatment program in place. The brief that we circulated to the committee includes a table that outlines each of the programs in place in each of the jurisdictions.

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Despite these gains, however, the impaired driving problem remains significant. Data from 1996 shows that 42% of all drivers fatally injured in crashes had been drinking, and 84% of these had blood-alcohol content readings in excess of the legal limit. A substantial number, 62%, had blood alcohol contents over 150 milligrams. In 1996, alcohol was involved in almost 40% of all motor vehicle-related fatalities.

We strongly support the committee's mandate to amend the Criminal Code legislation and believe that these changes can be most effectively implemented with due consideration to their implications. Any discussion about amending the Criminal Code must be undertaken in the context of the availability of enforcement and financial resources within the jurisdictions.

While amending the Criminal Code will have an impact upon impaired driving in and of it itself, any significant change requires the commitment of decision-makers and budget-makers at all levels of government. We believe that only through the addition or reallocation of resources to policing, court and health care systems will the issue of impaired driving be adequately addressed and significantly affected.

Enforcement resources are a key consideration. I'm sure you've heard this from the CACP and other people who have presented. The perceived risk of apprehension is a major issue in targeting the hard-core impaired driver. Increasing that perception will reduce drinking and driving and it will result in increased resources.

Jurisdictions have to implement any changes made to the Criminal Code, and implementing these changes often requires increased resources as well. This is not to suggest that all the changes are not welcome or necessary, but rather that the timing of change will have an effect on the capacity of the various jurisdictions to implement them most effectively. It will be important for federal and provincial governments to work together on the implementation of new legislation.

The list of issues raised by the standing committee contains many that are currently being dealt with at the provincial or territorial level, where the responsibility for licensing and enforcement lies. We believe these issues should continue to be dealt with at this level so as to minimize duplication of effort and maximize available resources. As well, the provinces and territories often have greater flexibility in the options and sanctions available to them, primarily due to their administration of the driver licensing system and the ability to tie these programs to those kinds of sanctions.

We continue to encourage the development of administrative measures by the provinces and territories, but believe there is a key role for the federal government to play in reducing impaired driving across Canada. This role is one of an enabler and one of providing leadership.

We believe one of the primary areas of focus for the committee should be amendments to the Criminal Code that would enhance its effectiveness, that is, facilitate the enforcement and prosecution of the law. Rewriting of the current laws to better address, for example, technical defences to impaired driving would be one aspect of this.

In a joint Transport Canada and Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police survey of front-line police officers, over 50% of all officers responded that they would lay more charges if the charging process took less time. On average, an officer completes over eight forms while processing a standard impaired driving charge. While these forms and a large extent of the administrative burden are a result of jurisdictional policies and practices, these policies in large part have evolved because of the existing law. This aspect of the current law can be amended to simplify and streamline the administrative burden that is currently imposed on law enforcement and crown prosecutors without, we believe, reducing the burden of proof on the crown or the requirements for providing evidence.

In conclusion, we believe that impaired driving is the paramount road safety issue facing legislators and administrators across Canada, and the Canadian public consistently supports this position. This is not a problem, however, that is easily solved. We believe that by recommending amendments to the Criminal Code this standing committee can enable the jurisdictions to deal more effectively with this issue.

CCMTA is committed to continuing to work with all jurisdictions, the federal government and the private sector, to remove impaired drivers from the road for good. We believe we all have a role to play in addressing this problem and we will best achieve our goals if we all work together and collaborate.

On behalf of the Canadian Council of Motor Transport Administrators, I thank you for the opportunity to appear before you here today. We believe the work of this committee is extremely important and we're very pleased to be able to participate in this process.

The Chairman: Thank you, Ms. Schmidt.

Mr. Basham is next. Mr. Basham has submitted a brief that is in both our official languages. The overhead slides are in English only. Is the committee content that we proceed to see the overhead slides in English only and we'll get the French translated? Is there agreement?

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Some hon. members: Yes.

The Chairman: Très bien.

Mr. Basham, would you like to proceed now?

Mr. Greg D. Basham (Government and Corporate Relations Executive, Executive Office, Insurance Corporation of British Columbia): I'm Greg D. Basham, government and corporate relations executive with the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia, and I want to apologize for the slides. In a great example of federal-provincial cooperation here, Paul Boase, the chief, road users, with road safety and motor vehicle regulations, Transport Canada, is going to put up the slides, which really pertain to costs.

First of all, I want to say it's a great honour and a great challenge to appear before you today. It's a great honour in that one of our employees, Mr. Cadman, is also a member of this committee. So it's very good to be here.

It's also a great challenge because some of the things you've asked us to comment upon are matters within the purview of the Attorney General of British Columbia. If it was simply a speech I was giving out in the community, I might say if something turned up in the media that perhaps I'd been taken out of context, or I might even be able to deny I was at the event, but here with the transcript... The chair may appreciate that sometimes attorneys general feel somewhat like a higher court judge or others when a lower court judge makes a public criticism. So I'm going to be very cautious and confine my remarks primarily to what the costs are of the tragedy of far too many impaired drivers on the roads of British Columbia.

ICBC, the Insurance Corporation of B.C., is a public insurer with over 2.3 million policyholders. In 1996 we merged with the Motor Vehicle Branch, the provincial group, and we now have a single organization focused on driver, vehicle and road safety. We're spending 3% of our over $2 billion in premium income on road safety programs. Not only do we want those roads to be safe for the motorists and to minimize the premiums people have to pay, but we also want to achieve our vision and mission, which is helping British Columbians take the risk out of road transportation.

So it's far beyond that role of a traditional insurance company and far beyond the role of a traditional licensing organization. We have embraced safety at a level of spending of 3% of $2.3 billion and we will continue to do our part.

Impaired driving in this country is about partnerships and about what we must do together, you as legislatures and we as a safety organization. For too long now I believe we've let victims do the speaking for us, and for too long now we've created a group of leaders in our society who come out of the ranks of victims, and their friends and their families. It's time for us to act. Acting together, I think we'll do more than acting in isolation.

As you can see in our brief, we've been working at the Enhanced CounterAttack program with our partner, the provincial government, since 1977. We now run CounterAttack drinking-and-driving enforcement from May to early January, and we'll show you some of those numbers. We participated and advocated strongly to get a graduated licensing program with a zero blood-alcohol content for novice drivers, and that is in place in B.C. We're spending our premium dollars on advertising not only the evils of alcohol and the problems but mixing prescription drugs. Drugs are a serious issue for people facing the challenge of driving a piece of heavy equipment.

We've also partnered with the provincial government to do the administrative work on the administrative driving prohibition put in place. That is, drivers over the legal limit, or who have refused a breath test, are prohibited from driving for 90 days. We've also cooperated with vehicle impoundment, where unlicensed or suspended drivers found driving by the police will have their vehicles impounded for 30 days for a first offence, and 60 days for a second or subsequent offence. These are tough measures that anecdotally the police tell us are helping in that fight. Our claims costs are down again, and 1996 was perhaps a watershed year. Our claims costs and crash numbers came down in 1997, came down again in 1998. We think some of the measures are working, but more is to be done.

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This chart shows the social costs of impaired driving. If we assume 30% of our fatalities on B.C.'s roadways involve alcohol, and that's a police-reported statistic...

The B.C. Ministry of Transportation and Highways did a study that indicated that, in 1997 dollars, a fatality costs society—businesses, communities, the health and insurance system—$3.3 million. So that alone would be close to $400 million for a single fatality. An injury costs over $100,000. For all insurance companies, not just ICBC, because some of the numbers are beyond ICBC or some are uninsured, the cost for injury alone for 8,900 incidents was over $1 billion in 1997, and the cost of some 27,000 property damage claims was $184 million.

That's $1.6 billion in social and economic costs, and that does nothing to measure the tragedy to victims and their families, nothing to measure the tragedy to communities who lose loved ones, nothing to measure the tragedy of too many people dying in whom we've invested heavily in our educational systems.

I want to show you the outstanding claims recovery. Since ICBC came into selling auto insurance in 1974, we've been trying to collect, on behalf of our policyholders, an outstanding amount of $375 million from people who have been criminally in breach of their insurance policies. Of that $375 million, $125 million deals with alcohol-related disasters. Of the 58,000 people we're trying to chase down, a quarter of those deal with alcohol, so that's a quarter of nearly 60,000 from whom we're trying to get the money.

Then take a look at how much you get back. Between 11% and 12% is all you're getting back, because the kinds of people who are doing the devastation on our roads, the hard-core drinkers, the people with the very high BAC readings, simply don't have the resources to pay. It is not that we, the insurance corporation, aren't doing our utmost to chase them, it's simply that they have no means and they couldn't care less. That's why measures like administrative driving prohibition and vehicle impoundment are starting to assist in this fight, but it's not over.

I want to show you the vehicle-related fatalities by age in the past two years. As you can see, in both 1997 and 1998 a disproportionate number of people between the ages of 15 and 24 died on our roads. The total of all vehicle-related deaths in B.C. in 1998 was 452 people. If we knew that every year a large jet was going to crash at one of our Canadian international airports, there would be outrage, and yet because they go one and two at a time, we tend to forget.

Quite shocking is the number of fatalities among people over the age of 65, many of whom are not victims of impaired driving but pedestrian knockdowns.

The point of this chart is simply to illustrate that we're killing too many people, and certainly our youth are dying on the roads.

One of the biggest fears I had as a parent when my kids were in their teens and twenties and they were out on a weekend night, when most of the deaths occur, was not that they would drink and drive, not that they would be stupid enough to get into a car with a drinking driver, but that they would be the target that turns up on those charts: the innocent victims that are dying. For too long we have been simply letting victims do the speaking.

I'd like to show you the number of death benefit claims that ICBC got between 1994 and 1998. You can see that from 1994 through to 1998 we've made some progress, but it simply isn't good enough. If we take it that 30% of those were alcohol-related, these are the numbers, but some studies done by the coroner's office in B.C. have shown that 50% of fatal drivers have been drinking, so if you added that in, the cost would be horrific. So this cost equals about $125 million, but we really think the cost would be double.

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We have 50,000 injury claims reported to ICBC. The numbers have been coming down, but again, if you take 10% based on police reports, at least 5,000 people are maimed and injured as a result of impaired drivers every year. For our employees at ICBC, this isn't just about cost; it is about the horror of having to deal with families and friends and the victims—horrible results.

On the matter of property damage, there were 592,000 collisions in 1998, of which we believe a low estimate of 5.5% or 32,000 involve alcohol. Remember, many collisions do not have police attendance, so these are extremely low numbers.

The point of these last three charts is that I simply want you to see the number of injuries and what we really believe are the dimensions of this problem.

On B.C.'s CounterAttack results, I want to show you what we've done here. We're now spending $14 million a year of policyholder money—that is meant to reduce insurance costs—on increased enforcement. That includes impaired driving, and I mentioned the CounterAttacks.

This past year, over 5 million motorists were screened. TIRF did some research with us, stopping motorists after they had successfully passed roadblocks, and many of them escaped undetected at roadside screenings. We checked over 5 million people in 1998.

We began in 1996, and it was controversial putting our money into this. In 1996 we checked 2.2 million motorists. In terms of either roadside suspensions or Criminal Code charges—the bulk of them were 24-hour roadside suspensions—there were 4.38 charges or suspensions per 1,000 motorists checked, and that has dropped to 2.46 per 1,000. So B.C. motorists are getting the message.

Let's look at the harm, in our “Comparison of Harm” chart—and this is in no way to diminish violent crime. These are horrific things and these are societal problems we need to attack. As you can see, the fatalities in 1996 outstripped the homicides in British Columbia. The injuries outstripped the assaults, and the property loss outstripped the number of property crimes. Again, I don't want to diminish these other events because they are very horrific, but I want you to know that so is alcohol.

In closing, what are our people saying? Our presence advisory committee appeared before you—the road safety committee of ICBC—and they made some far-reaching recommendations that we support. One we strongly support, which our Attorney General's representative, Roger Cutler, mentioned, is drug impairment. Put teeth into the Criminal Code of Canada so police can use the same methods checking for drugs as they do for alcohol.

Lastly, let me tell you what the general public are doing—and these are good and decent people. We did a survey of over 1,500 British Columbia people. They were asked how often in the past month they had driven within two hours of taking any over-the-counter medications, such as codeine, antihistamines or cold medications. Of 1,529 people, 14% said they had, and they had driven an average of 5.5 times.

We also asked how often within the last month they had driven within two hours of taking sleeping pills, diet pills, tranquillizers or anti-depressants, and 3.3% said they had, and they had driven an average of 15.4 times.

They were asked whether they thought it had affected their driving, and 80% said it had—and so on down the line.

They were asked how often they had driven within two hours of using marijuana or hashish, and 3.2% of the people had, but they had driven an average of 6.8 times.

This is the message for most of us in this society. When asked whether during the past month they had driven after having had two or more drinks within a two-hour period, 15% said they had, and they had driven an average of 2.3 times. When asked whether they thought it would impair their driving, 73% said they thought it would.

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When asked if they had ever been involved in a motor vehicle accident because somebody else was drinking, 12% said yes. This is a high rate of victimization. We need to act; we need to act together.

If you do one thing and one thing only, we would support the recommendation of the Attorney General's representative, Roger Cutler, that you should deal with the drug issue. It is a serious problem. The public support stronger enforcement measures. This survey of 1,529 people—all the good things about surveys—said that 90% support stronger enforcement, stronger measures.

I believe, as we move to the millennium, that our time is now. This is a serious issue. You wouldn't be talking about it if you didn't think it was. I commend you and thank you for this opportunity.

The Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Basham.

We'll now go to seven-minute rounds, starting with Mr. Harris.

Mr. Dick Harris (Prince George—Bulkley Valley, Ref.): Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you all for your excellent presentations this morning. Also thank you to those from B.C. who didn't give us the annual daffodil count in Victoria; it would just make us all feel bad today.

I think we can all agree that a combination of things has to be seriously addressed in order to cut down the incidence of impaired driving. That includes education; a sufficient deterrent in the form of a threat that if you drink and drive, this is what will happen to you; and very importantly, the policing resources and enforcement of the laws. Last, but probably as important as or more important than any other, is an effective court system that can deal with the people charged with impaired driving and balance the evidence equally. We've heard from a number of witnesses that there is favouritism toward the defence rather than the prosecution, and there's an imbalance there. I think we all agree on those points.

I want to just make a comment about the hard-core drinking driver we've heard about now on a number of occasions. Someone compared a hard-core drinking driver to someone who points a loaded pistol at every vehicle coming down the road in the opposite lane. I think that's a pretty accurate comparison.

If someone runs around with a loaded pistol and robs a corner store or fires into a crowd to scare people, that person is dealt with very severely under the law. They're given some real jail time. If someone gets caught and it's their first, second or third offence of impaired driving seriously over the limit, even though the potential of harm to the general public is as great as or greater than with the person who runs around with a pistol, that person tends to be dealt with in a far less severe manner than someone who actually has a gun in their hand. Yet the potential for harm and the actual results have been far more severe than someone who runs around shooting people.

We've seen the statistics. Why do we continue to treat hard-core drinking drivers, who kill hundreds of people per year, as if the crime they're committing is not as serious as when someone actually goes out and starts shooting at people? We're not effectively addressing that very serious crime. Is it because there's still some sort of feeling this is just a social ill and not the crime it really is? I'll just open that up to you.

Mr. Emile Therien: I think it has been a factor of the unknown until very recently, because this problem has been identified by TIRF and other organizations. The fact is—TIRF support the figures I alluded to earlier—there are 16 million incidents of drunk driving in this country every year. To put it in perspective, if 80% of those incidents are accounted for by 2% of your driving population, you have a heck of a problem.

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Where there have been high-profile incidents where there has been a fatality, maybe the sentences given by judges have been a little stiffer than in the past. In Ontario recently there was one of eight years, which I think was the longest sentence ever for impaired driving in Canada. So I think they're shifting that way. And the maximum is 14, so there is a provision for 14 years.

Mr. Dick Harris: The provision is there, but if you look at the majority of the sentencing for impaired drivers who kill, it is still very much on the lower end of the scale of sentencing. The eight-year sentence and the six-year one a little while ago in Alberta were really exceptions to the normal sentencing we've come to experience. I'm happy that the sentencing precedents have been raised, and I hope we continue to see them on the upper scale for the most serious of crimes.

Mr. Greg Basham: If I might also comment, I think the member certainly is right that there has been a perception that alcohol is an illness, and that in sentencing they are looking at the circumstances. Remember, an impaired driver often has a family and has a job, and with the society we live in, where the car is just so required, you start to get a diminishment of sentencing. It's really a resource issue that governments are faced with. Where do you put the resources?

The road safety committee of ICBC recommended to you that perhaps mandatory assessment and treatment on a user-pay basis would be a step in the right direction. But again, governments are looking at all levels. Where do you put the resources? When you look at the costs on the roads, perhaps it's time to put them into the road issue.

Mr. Dick Harris: The numbers you gave us this morning, Mr. Basham, clearly showed that having the police forces out there on the roads and highways and in our communities and having the road checks out there contributed tremendously to reducing impaired driving because people simply knew they were out there. In the case of impaired driving, there is a real case for the fact that if I get caught I'm going to get the book thrown at me. But that all costs money.

Maybe one of the things we can do is to start throwing some serious funds at fighting this very epidemic problem in Canada—1,400 people a year. Since we started these hearings, statistically there have been about 125 people killed in Canada. We started February 1. That is absolutely unacceptable.

When I talk to people and ask them why they stopped driving after they've been drinking, the number one answer, nine out of ten, is because they don't want to get caught. So deterrence is an effective tool, but we have to put the resources there to get the police forces out on the roads to pose that threat of getting caught.

Mr. Emile Therien: Could I just comment on a very successful program we're involved in with the Insurance Bureau of Canada in Mississauga? They partner this with the Peel Regional Police, and it's amazing what happened in a short period of time. I really compliment the Insurance Bureau of Canada.

What you're saying is the cops have to have the money to do the job.

Mr. Dick Harris: You bet.

Mr. Emile Therien: If you look at the traffic safety divisions of police departments, 700 or 800 people... I don't know what it is here in Ottawa, but if there are more than ten people in the traffic safety division of the Ottawa Police Department, I would be very shocked. You have to have the resources. A RIDE program once a year during the holiday season is not going to do very much.

Mr. Dick Harris: No, it certainly has to be year-round.

Mr. Stan Griffin: If I could just comment on that pilot project that Mr. Therien mentioned, we recognized exactly that point, that enforcement seems to make a big difference in people's behaviour. So we did fund a pilot project in Peel region, just west of Toronto, about a year ago in which we gave the Peel Regional Police a sum of about $50,000 over a six-month period and said “You know where the problem intersections are; you know where things are going awry. You deploy the police force as you see fit at those intersections or those parts of Peel region and report to us on a monthly basis the results.” It had terrific positive results. The number of vehicles that were stopped for various types of infractions increased dramatically over that period.

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As a result of that, I'm very pleased to say that the Insurance Bureau of Canada will be partnering with the Ontario government in a major announcement to be made, hopefully, later this month where we will be partnering in the continuation of that kind of program available throughout the province of Ontario. So we certainly recognize that enforcement does make a difference.

[Translation]

The Chairman: Mr. Bellehumeur.

Mr. Michel Bellehumeur (Berthier—Montcalm, BQ): I have no questions.

[English]

The Chairman: Mr. MacKay.

Mr. Peter MacKay (Pictou—Antigonish—Guysborough, PC): Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to thank all the presenters, not only for your presentations but for your comprehensive materials.

I had one question relating specifically to the insurance industry. Is the insurance industry advocating or would they be interested in having a graduated system or working closer with the legal community? The big penalty, aside from the criminal conviction and the driving suspension, is the fact that your insurance is going to go up. Is there currently a scheme in place that looks at basically denying insurance? Is there a graduated schedule there now, based on the number of convictions and the number of impaired driving offences?

Mr. Greg Basham: I'll comment from the insurance corporation point of view.

If a person is suspended they won't be driving, but the simple fact of the matter is we have to take all comers. So if the person is entitled to insurance and entitled to drive, we can't stop them. But within the Criminal Code there may well be some possibilities for you people to look at in terms of penalties for higher BAC readings that would attack the hard-core drinker. From our point of view, there isn't really that linkage. Again, penalties without treatment are not going to do the job; it's both, especially with hard core.

Mr. Stan Griffin: In provinces we operate in, similar to British Columbia, the control really is with the licensing agent. If a driver's licence is issued to a driver, then we're required to provide them insurance.

In Ontario, as I mentioned in our brief, if you do have Criminal Code convictions, the most common of which is impaired driving, it is almost impossible to find insurance in the regular market—that is, from the regular insurance companies out there. There is a special pool called the facility association where you would be forced to have insurance purchased, and the surcharges there are substantial; they start at 100% and go up to about 250%. So yes, there are very severe financial penalties in terms of having that kind of record in terms of purchasing insurance.

As well, there are restrictions if you are in a collision and you are impaired at the time. There are severe limitations on what payments will be made. Damage to the vehicle, for example, is not covered if you're charged with impaired driving. The payments are restricted really to injuries and taking care of the individual.

Mr. Peter MacKay: Further to that, with respect to insurance and advocating the use of these interlock devices, advocating mandatory treatment, which I think is something Mr. Basham referenced in his remarks, obviously in the law there is a carrot-and-stick approach taken. It's seen as a mitigating circumstance if the accused is willing to enter into these programs. Does the insurance company view it the same way? Is the insurance company willing to lower its rates based on the participation of...well, not the accused in your instance, because it's non-criminal, but in terms of applying for insurance, is that factored into the insurance rate?

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Mr. Greg Basham: Well, from the insurance corporation's point of view, it isn't factored in if they're eligible to drive. If they've had crashes, we have a graduated scheme of better insurance for people with longer years of crash-free driving.

On the alcohol interlock, we've looked at this at ICBC. Our view would be that where alcohol interlock is used it should occur after the suspension, and not to reduce the suspension. Hopefully the AG will like that answer.

Mr. Stan Griffin: I believe interlock programs have just been introduced in the province of Alberta, but we have no experience yet with how that's going to play out.

In the insurance industry, if the experience of programs and devices like this have an impact, certainly that's reflected in the ultimate premium. I think the best example is the graduated licensing system we've talked about; that has resulted in reductions for novice drivers.

Mr. Peter MacKay: Speaking of graduated systems, I realize that some of you have advocated a graduated sentencing system, which already exists to an extent—basically, higher readings, higher sentences. Is that something that most if not all of you embrace?

Mr. Emile Therien: Or different treatment.

Mr. Peter MacKay: Or greater emphasis on... When you're talking about mandatory treatment, this is after the fact. This is after the injury or the death or the conviction. But you're advocating that emphasis as well, that there should be mandatory treatment as well as part of any sentence?

Mr. Raynald Marchand (Manager, Traffic Safety and Training, Canada Safety Council): Oh, absolutely.

I think we have actually three groups. The enforcement issue and the penalty issues are still needed for the masses. To a certain extent, we have gotten to these people. The other known entity that we have now that has surfaced in the last few years is the repeat offender. But we're lucky, because we know that person; they have been caught at least once. We know that they don't react very well to potential penalties and these things.

So coming from the other side, saying that mandatory treatments, interlocks, and so on, or methods that can help us... Unfortunately, there are often very few incentives for them to enter these programs, except perhaps as a court diversion instead of going to jail. There are often few recognitions from society or insurance to help them. Yet very often a repeat offender who might have a high BAC a year after their driver's licence is suspended, or sometimes as little as three months, depending where they are, is given back their licence, even though they're still an alcoholic or heavy drinker. We're going to have another repeat offender automatically out of that.

The third part, because I said there were three parts, is the new drivers. For the new drivers, the graduated licensing system hopefully will make a driver who is not going to offend. That certainly, within that context, should work.

Mr. Peter MacKay: I'm trying to tailor my questions to your presentation. And I apologize for arriving late.

I know the insurance company, like any business, has its bottom line, and they have to have clients. The more impaired drivers that are convicted, the fewer drivers there are on the road.

Mr. Emile Therien: Not necessarily. Just because they're convicted or they're being—

Mr. Peter MacKay: They may still drive—absolutely.

Mr. Emile Therien: They continue to drive.

Mr. Peter MacKay: Many do.

I'm interested in your response to upping the ante in the Criminal Code by raising the levy or the fines or the corrective measures for driving without insurance.

Mr. Mark Yakabuski: A number of provinces have already, beginning with Ontario, increased the cost or the penalties for driving without insurance considerably. Nova Scotia has also increased their penalties, of course, from your home province. The problem is these are at the discretion of the judge, and often the judge doesn't want to apply the full cost, which in Ontario is up to $5,000, because they find that many of these people are not in a position to really to be able to pay these fines. So thus far it has probably not been as effective as we would have liked to have seen it. The crinks still have to be ironed out.

Mr. Peter MacKay: I guess one other major difficulty that has been identified—and Mr. Harris alluded to it in his remarks—is that the police themselves are feeling tremendously frustrated after the fact. Beginning right at the instance of the vehicle being stopped, and the technical hoops they have to jump through and their presentation of documentation in courts and the sheer amount of time it takes to process an impaired driver. So I'm glad to see as well that most if not all of you have advocated streamlining the system and the processing of the paperwork that is often involved in impaired driving cases.

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Do you have any specific recommendations along those lines—streamlining and the efforts of police to actually catch the drivers? One suggestion that has been presented a number of times, particularly by the officers in their comments to us, is the reasonable and probable grounds in stopping and the ability of the officer to enter his observations of the accused, not only for the purpose of having the blood-alcohol reading admitted, but also as evidence of proof of impairment. That changed, I guess, in the early 1980s as a result of case law.

Mr. Raynald Marchand: That is part of our recommendation number four, to amend reasonable and probable grounds for alcohol testing, which is in support of what the CACP, the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, also brought forward. Also recommendation number five, which is to facilitate the requirement for a breath test within two hours of the apprehension, is another one of our recommendations in support of that as well.

The Chairman: Thank you, Mr. MacKay.

Mr. Saada.

[Translation]

Mr. Jacques Saada (Brossard—La Prairie, Lib.): I want to thank you for your presentations because I find them truly impressive.

All your presentations have one common point, and this applies also to the presentations previous to yours, and the point is that there is no single solution that we should consider but rather, we should adopt a range of solutions. Obviously, I am basically in agreement with this observation.

However, within the whole range of solutions that were proposed, one is of particular interest to me today, because I think that this is the first time it was referred to as such, and I mean the issue of restorative justice raised by the Canadian Safety Council.

By definition, restorative justice in intended both for punishment and for redress. There is a price to pay, but basically, society benefits from it. In other words, we do not seek to penalize offenders, but rather to ensure that there be some redress made to society for the wrong that was done. And by redress, I do not mean a payment in money but an engagement.

In your brief you give the Windsor case as an example. I think a young man was involved. Was he a repeat offender?

Mr. Raynald Marchand: No, not in that case. This was a 16 year old who was in a car with his friends. He was driving. His friends died. The parents of these young people became very active, and the young man made many presentations to other students in Windsor to atone for his wrongdoing and help other youths in his age group, in his environment, to reduce the number of accidents caused by impaired driving.

Mr. Jacques Saada: This is very well explained in your brief and I thank you for it.

On this issue, I would like to ask two much more pointed and specific questions, not about the Windsor case, but about restorative justice.

Obviously, when dealing with restorative justice, we automatically think of the role played by direct or indirect victims in the process. Clearly, this measure can only be applied with the consent of the victim involved. Am I not right in saying that without the victim's consent, they cannot be forced to intervene?

Mr. Raynald Marchand: Of course, in the Windsor case, the parents of the youths who died in the crash, and who were in fact the victims, did consent to this and were even supportive. In some cases, restorative justice unquestionably helps victims to accept what happened and to carry on with their lives.

In other cases, obviously, the victim is more interested in revenge and is not ready to participate on the same basis.

Mr. Jacques Saada: I understand. I favour this kind of provision, of course, as you had perhaps already guessed because you are very intuitive.

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I have one concern with this matter. I would like to know whether these restorative justice plans, especially for impaired driving, exist in a sufficiently large number to be able to draw scientific conclusions about their efficiency or whether these plans are in their early infancy.

Mr. Raynald Marchand: We are still in a period of early infancy. We do not have enough data about this. Often these are very isolated cases where very young drivers are involved.

Mr. Jacques Saada: Have we any idea of the impact that this type of justice may have on hardened repeat offenders who have withstood, for instance, traffic penalties, license suspensions or other forms of punishment dealt out by courts, individuals who sometimes refuse to consider the very notion that they might have an alcohol problem, which is an essential condition for really solving the problem? Do we know whether this works in specific cases of hardened repeat offenders?

Mr. Raynald Marchand: Not to my knowledge, nor to the knowledge of the Canadian Safety Council. However, we know that in certain cases, it is very beneficial, especially for youth, because we are trying to change the general attitude of drivers and of young drivers.

A second time offender is often someone in their late twenties or even in their thirties, with very rigidly set attitudes and values. We know that attitudes and values determine human behaviour. To change behaviour, we must have a very specific influence over attitudes, and for the time being, I have no data to show that this type of restorative justice has any effect on attitudes, except in cases where the repeat offender has suffered very personally, by losing his wife or child, if they were in the car when the accident occurred. This can go a long way towards changing attitudes.

Mr. Jacques Saada: Thank you.

I have a question for the whole panel, to those who would like to respond to it. Mr. Basham mentioned the problem of impaired driving due to the use of drugs and not alcohol. We all know that the rules of evidence in such cases are vastly different from the rules of evidence in cases involving alcohol. This raises a number of questions.

[English]

besides the motherhood statements of this issue.

What do you do, concretely speaking, to tackle this problem if you take into account, for instance, that the presence of drugs in the blood can remain for much longer periods after actual impairment? What do you do in the case where you have a mixture of alcohol and drugs, each of them to a limit that is lower than the authorized limit—I mean, in terms of alcohol? In other words, each of the measures would not qualify the accused or the suspected driver of being impaired, but the combination would impair them.

I would like to hear you speak about this question. I've put this question a few times already, and I've felt a lot of compassion on the part of the people who appeared before us on this issue. But I haven't found the answers yet, and I need your help to find some answers in this regard.

Mr. Greg Basham: I'd like to comment on that. The combination of drugs has been studied somewhat by our coroner. There was a small percentage, I think it was around 7%, of fatal drivers who did have that combination. I can't comment on the medical aspects. But what I can say is that our ICBC road safety committee recommended the sobriety tests be a demand and an offence within the Criminal Code, such that the police could put the person through a test to see whether they have the coordination functions that would determine whether or not they needed to be tested further. Also, the road safety committee recommended a saliva demand be permitted within the Criminal Code, and drug impairment be forced through drug recognition experts. We in B.C. have trained some 75 police constables to be experts in recognizing the symptoms where these two things play together.

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I'm not sure I can answer what you do when they're underneath the demand, except the sobriety test, if your coordination simply doesn't permit you... If that demand, in the sense that you didn't comply, were in the Criminal Code, that might be a partial answer to your question.

Mr. Raynald Marchand: Perhaps I can provide an interesting example. In Canada I'm not sure to what extent other drugs are involved, because it's not as well studied as alcohol, but we can certainly do something to not send more people down that path.

I'll give you an example. Sweden is an interesting country because, like Canada, they have impaired driving as part of their criminal code. In 1990 they reduced their alcohol level from .05, which was already lower than ours, to .02. In 1995, five years later, they reported at the international conference on drug, alcohol, and traffic safety in Australia, that those measures had not produced any change. They had seen some change, not in impaired driving fatalities but in the drug being used—i.e., some of the drivers involved in impaired collisions had a lower amount of alcohol but a higher percentage of illegal drugs or other drugs. It had been a shift as a result of that, but the net result was that they had no reduction in their overall fatality rates related to impaired driving of some sort.

I asked the researcher who made the presentation if his government intended to go back to the .05, given that .02 had not given the result they wanted. He looked at me and said that would not be politically wise.

So it is interesting to see what other countries have done and to ensure that with regard to anything we do make a change in, we have to also think ahead as to what impact it will have.

The Chairman: Thank you.

Mr. Saada.

[Translation]

Mr. Jacques Saada: Have I no time left?

The Chairman: It is finished.

Mr. Jacques Saada: Thank you.

[English]

The Chairman: Mr. Harris.

Mr. Dick Harris: This is a three-minute round?

The Chairman: It is a three-minute round, sir.

Mr. Dick Harris: I thank you again for your presentations.

We've seen the numbers today, from a property cost, a health care cost, and of course the human cost. We've also seen a number, and I know this number exists—there are up to 16 million incidents of impaired driving in Canada every year, which in my opinion, and I'm sure in yours, makes it the single issue, the highest risk to our society that exists in our country today. It represents the highest risk to life and limb, the highest risk to costs to our health care system, to our insurance system.

But it seems that it's taken so long for our legislators to realize the potential of this single risk that is out there. It's taken so long, although some steps certainly have been taken. It seems it's taken so long for them both to realize the risk and to take some serious action to lessen this risk. What would be the biggest single reason, do you think, that it's taken us so long?

Mr. Emile Therien: Can I respond to that? We made reference to the TIRF studies of the 1985 amendments. TIRF did those about three years after the amendments came into effect. TIRF identified that you had a serious problem. Some national organization's individuals went to the federal government and said “You've got a problem, let's review what was done.” Legislatures were asleep at the switch. Fourteen years later we're dealing with a problem that should have been identified or dealt with in 1988.

Mr. Dick Harris: Thank you.

Ms. Janice Schmidt: I think another aspect is that to some degree we've been a victim of our own success. I think in the 1970s and 1980s, when we made considerable progress everywhere in the country, and indeed the world, in impaired driving, perhaps there was a view that we had conquered the problem. We were starting to see some real improvements, but unfortunately what happened is that the problem has continued, it's persisted. And yes, we've made some improvements, but we have certainly not conquered this problem. A false sense, a complacency, if you like, may have settled in.

• 1110

Mr. Dick Harris: Do you think that maybe—and I've used this phrase earlier—for too long we've considered impaired driving simply a social ill, as opposed to the serious crime that it is? Do you think that's the problem as well, or could be ?

Mr. Emile Therien: I personally think a lot of bureaucrats didn't want to go there.

Mr. Dick Harris: Thank you. I appreciate your frankness.

Mr. Stan Griffin: I would comment that I think we should give some credit to some wonderful work—

Mr. Emile Therien: Not Janice.

Mr. Stan Griffin: I think there has been some wonderful work done over the last 10 years in getting the message out that drinking and driving is not socially acceptable. I think that message has changed in the last 10 or 15 years due to the work of a lot of community groups and others across the country. What we may have learned in the last three years is that unless that continuing public education is also backed up with meaningful enforcement, we lose any progress we've made.

That's our observation. That's one of the lessons learned, that you must have public education linked very closely with continued enforcement. We've seen resources that are available for that kind of enforcement reduced across the country, and I think this has been one of the logical results.

Mr. Dick Harris: Thank you.

Mr. Greg Basham: I would like to comment. I believe it is both a social ill and a medical illness issue, so it needs to be attacked at both ends. Where we can strengthen the law, we should look to do those things, at the same time recognizing resources of courts and so forth. Plugging up the courts beyond what they are now wouldn't be the right thing. But if there were an initiative—as you've described it, the highest risk to members of society is impaired driving—could there be leadership, where funding is available for mandatory assessment and treatment after conviction? The two together could really bring it down to where some day we could sit back and say the year 1999 was the year we moved toward total elimination and the biggest jump, because this last little bit is the hardest little bit to get.

The Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Harris.

Mr. Emile Therien: Could I just make one comment? We alluded in our presentation to the fact that in some countries, including the United States, our southern neighbour, unless there's an injury or fatality it is not a criminal code charge. I don't what their terminology is.

I think your committee should really look at those countries of the world that have that in place, because we are no better or no worse than the Americans in this. They have really, to a great extent, decriminalized the process. We talk about the courts, the problem, and this and that. If somebody's charged with impaired driving in this country—and we all know it here—they will spend their last dollar to be found innocent or to have that charge reduced to something.

I think the whole issue of decriminalization should be studied by your committee. I think it's a very, very important issue. I am not advocating that, but I think it should be part of your whole study on this.

Thank you very much.

The Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Therien.

Mr. John McKay.

Mr. John McKay (Scarborough East, Lib.): I noticed Mr. Bellemare is not here, so if you don't mind, Mr. Chair, I'll take his seven minutes. I'll just tie on my pathetic little three minutes and have a ten-minute round.

The Chairman: You're using up your time, Mr. McKay. I wish you would proceed.

Mr. John McKay: My ten minutes. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Ms. Schmidt, I understand you're the Manitoba representative on the—

Ms. Janice Schmidt: British Columbia.

Mr. John McKay: Oh, B.C. Well, I just wanted to reconcile two points here. I noticed the Ontario Court of Appeal has put on hold a decision concerning the legality of a provincial law with respect to driver suspension, but the Manitoba people seem to have succeeded in their scheme of driver suspensions—30 days for over .05, and 90 days for second offences and things of that nature. It seems to have succeeded. Can you reconcile those two apparently disparate ideas?

Ms. Janice Schmidt: I'm not familiar with the details of the case in Ontario, but I know they've been talking to my colleagues in British Columbia about that case as well, because we have a similar program.

It is not at all uncommon to find different kinds of decisions made at the judicial level with regard to these kinds of programs. It's often difficult, if not impossible, to reconcile why one province would be successful in fighting a particular challenge that appears to be similar grounds to some other jurisdictions. It really has to do with the case law in that province, the system, the way the infrastructure...it's a very complicated issue. Not being familiar enough with the details of both scenarios, I really couldn't comment on what happened in this particular instance.

• 1115

Mr. John McKay: I take it as a point of principle, though, that the notion of administered suspensions is a pretty attractive one.

Ms. Janice Schmidt: Attractive in the sense of—

Mr. John McKay: In getting drivers off the road.

Ms. Janice Schmidt: I think the provinces that have those kinds of programs in place and have evaluated them in the complete sense have found them to be quite effective. Elsewhere in the world where they've been implemented as well, they've had a high success rate. Because of some of the difficulties with the criminal prosecution process, probably more emphasis has been placed in recent years on administrative sanctions of this nature.

Mr. John McKay: Do any of the other panellists have comments on the success of administrative suspensions in terms of (a) getting people off the road and (b) how they have been received by the courts as far as challenges are concerned? Is that an area where we should push a little bit further?

Mr. Greg Basham: Certainly, that's an area where you should push further. In B.C. we have successfully beaten back challenges to the administrative driving prohibition, that is, anybody over the legal limit prohibited from driving for 90 days. It has even reached the point where I heard somebody on a rock radio station in Vancouver complaining about it, and the commentator just cut the guy off and wouldn't even listen to him. Vehicle impoundment has withstood the test. If you're unlicensed or suspended for drinking and driving, they take the vehicle for 30 days for a first offence, and then 60 and 90. That's working, and it has not been successfully challenged. That's also the case for indefinite licence suspension. In B.C. impaired drivers are suspended administratively for one year now upon first conviction, three years for second, indefinite upon third. So far—

Mr. John McKay: These are all convictions, aren't they?

Mr. Greg Basham: No. With regard to the administrative driving prohibition, if you test over, you are suspended before conviction.

Mr. John McKay: Do you mean if you test over .08?

Mr. Greg Basham: Yes, In B.C. if you test over .08, you are suspended for up to 90 days. That has just been put into effect.

Mr. John McKay: I understand that the Manitoba program is test over .05 and that it's the same for Ontario.

Mr. Greg Basham: In B.C. .05 will get you a 24-hour roadside suspension. But the actual 90 days is if you test over .08.

Mr. John McKay: How much time do I have left, seven or eight minutes?

The Chairman: Keep going.

Mr. John McKay: With regard to the hard-core drinkers—call them what you will—we've heard testimony after testimony that education doesn't do a thing for them. You can ratchet it up to hanging; it really doesn't matter with these folks.

Again, I'm directing this question to Ms. Schmidt initially. According to the statistics in your presentation, you've made some progress. But I still am at a loss as to how to get to these people, because it strikes me that's where the biggest bang for the buck is. It doesn't matter whether or not we have budget surpluses; it's still going to be a case of diminished resources, arguments over allocation of resources, police budgets, etc. The question is, is that where we should focus as far as minimizing the cost of these guys over here is concerned but also minimizing the impact on the road? Is that where the best bang for the buck is?

Ms. Janice Schmidt: There does seem to be some difference of opinion about that. Because it's so difficult and it's the group that's least likely to be rehabilitated and to not reoffend, some people believe that going after that group may not be a good use of resources. On the other hand, there's the argument that it's that small group of people who continue to have all the crashes and to bring the costs up for everybody else.

I think it's safe to say that the measures we've had in place in the past have primarily not targeted the hard-core driver. They have really been effective for the casual drinker, if you like, and that really hasn't been the focus. However, that is where we are turning our attention to now, as this group has become in recent years the problem core group for us. That is the group we have to now strategize around and think of different things, because the programs we've had in place to deal with the casual drinking driver are not effective against this chronic person, primarily because in many cases there's an alcohol problem, which is where the mandatory treatment programs come in.

• 1120

We also thought that impounding vehicles would be a good measure for this group, because this group continues to drive after they've been prohibited or suspended from driving. What some in this group do, though, is continue to purchase more vehicles and keep driving. We can't necessarily keep them off the road even by taking away their vehicles. They'll keep buying other vehicles, and they don't care if they get impounded. I don't think we have all the answers yet as to how to deal most effectively with this group. I think it involves a combination of things, as we've mentioned before, a multidisciplinary approach. Traditional education approaches, for example, that have done wonders in reducing impaired driving generally are not going to work at all with this group.

The Chairman: This will be your last question, Mr. McKay.

Mr. John McKay: Oh, come on.

With regard to the transfer of licences, is there anything that could be done in that area as far as putting an onus on a transfer or in some manner or other to obtain some assurance that this person is not within this 1% cohort? Is there any meaningful way that a licence transfer could recognize that issue?

Mr. Janice Schmidt: I'm not sure what you mean by licence transfer.

Mr. John McKay: You said that they just go out and buy more cars. You can impound them, put on ignition devices, you can do everything, and they just keep on buying other cars. So one of the ways of administratively responding to that is by way of licence transfers. If I'm that hard-core person, can I be tagged in the computer in some manner or other so that I can't receive a licence?

Ms. Janice Schmidt: Even if that were possible, it might not really stop the problem, because they'll just drive somebody else's vehicle and get that impounded, and that's quite often what they do. If they're denied insurance because of their own record, they'll drive a family member's vehicle or somebody else's car. The way most impounded programs work, it doesn't matter whose car you're driving. If you're caught driving while prohibited, the car is impounded. So they can still find ways around that, unfortunately.

Mr. John McKay: I thank you, Mr. Chairman, for your generosity.

Mr. Emile Therien: Could I comment on that?

The Chairman: Mr. Therien, go ahead.

Mr. Emile Therien: Windsor, Ontario, has a dedicated police unit in the traffic safety branch, and what they're after is the repeat offender. I think they've counted 67 who they consider to be really critical, really hard-core, repeat offenders. A cop car is behind them and in front of them, and when they walk out of their house, they're there. It's a deterrent program. It's going to be challenged under the charter, but so far it has been a very successful program. It has been in effect for only four months. The PR and the press that has been generated is phenomenal. But at least these hard-core offenders will think, hey, that guy in the car over there is looking at me.

If out of these hearings in three years we get down to 12 million incidents of impaired driving, we will have come a long way. There's no magic solution.

The Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Therien.

Mr. Cadman.

Mr. Chuck Cadman (Surrey North, Ref.): Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I have just a couple of brief comments. Much attention is being paid to the situation in Windsor with the young fellow doing the... I can vouch for B.C. I know that at least three years ago there was a 16-year-old kid in Kamloops, I believe it was, who was doing exactly the same thing. He had killed somebody on the road, and he was touring the schools. There were also three young people who had survived a very severe crash who were touring the province, and this was three years ago. This is nothing new. It has been going on for a while.

I have just one housekeeping question, Mr. Basham. You presented us with a number of figures on charts. Can you make copies available to the committee?

Mr. Greg Basham: Yes, I'm going to send them to the committee in both languages.

Mr. Chuck Cadman: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

The Chairman: Ms. Bakopanos.

Ms. Eleni Bakopanos (Ahuntsic, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you very much for your presentations.

I have three quick questions. First of all, to the Canadian Council of Motor Transport Administrators, in the diagram at the end of your presentation it appears that British Columbia and Quebec are the only two provinces that really have zero tolerance for novices.

Mr. Mark Yakabuski: Au contraire. Are you speaking about graduated licensing?

Ms. Eleni Bakopanos: No, I'm talking about zero tolerance for novices.

Mr. Mark Yakabuski: For new drivers.

Ms. Eleni Bakopanos: Yes. According to the diagram, it's only B.C. and Quebec.

Mr. Mark Yakabuski: All of the provinces that now have introduced some form of graduated licensing have zero tolerance for the novice driver. Where they don't have zero tolerance is for the supervisory driver who might be in the car with them. That's where we're recommending that those things become stricter and that they adopt a model where both the novice driver and the supervisory driver have to have a zero blood-alcohol content. If the guy beside you has had a couple of drinks, what example is that setting for the person who is supposed to be getting their licence?

• 1125

Ms. Eleni Bakopanos: Ms. Schmidt.

Ms. Janice Schmidt: Yes, that's correct. Normally, zero tolerance is a feature of graduated licensing programs. Perhaps what this table shows is those jurisdictions that have most recently brought in those changes. Ontario has had that in place now for some time, and that doesn't necessarily show on this particular chart.

Ms. Eleni Bakopanos: That's why I'm asking the question.

Ms. Janice Schmidt: The chart may not be as clear as it could be in that respect.

Ms. Eleni Bakopanos: It has to be corrected, because anybody looking at this chart would think only two provinces have zero tolerance.

Ms. Janice Schmidt: Yes, I can see where this might be misleading in that particular aspect. Thank you for pointing it out.

Ms. Eleni Bakopanos: Thank you very much.

I think it's

[Translation]

Mr. Therien said that the whole process should be decriminalized.

[English]

Mr. Emile Therien: No, I wasn't advocating decriminalization.

Ms. Eleni Bakopanos: That's why I'm asking you for clarification.

Mr. Emile Therien: In many parts of this world, including the United States, unless there's a fatality or an injury, it's not a criminal charge. The incidence of impaired driving is no different there than it is here. What I'm recommending to this committee is that in your study you look at those countries where it is criminalized and where it is not, with the exception of an injury or fatality. I think this is very critical to your work and to what's going to happen—

Ms. Eleni Bakopanos: But you would agree—

Mr. Emile Therien: We have 84,000 impaired driving charges a year.

Ms. Eleni Bakopanos: But if I take your argument a little further, the fact is that the courts are not even applying the law that's there right now. Decriminalizing it may hit the first-time offenders. It will not touch the group we've been talking about, the repeat offenders. In fact, by decriminalizing it, you may get into a worse situation in terms of convictions.

Mr. Emile Therien: But I'm saying that if you look at the repeat offender situation in the United States, you'll find that their problem mirrors ours. It's no worse or no better.

Ms. Eleni Bakopanos: But you understand my concern about taking that route.

Mr. Emile Therien: I'm saying we must do international comparisons to see—

Ms. Eleni Bakopanos: And see where it works.

Mr. Emile Therien: Yes. This is not part of our position, but I think it is a point for the committee, the federal government, and the provinces to consider.

Ms. Eleni Bakopanos: Your last recommendation is to provide resources to ensure the law is properly understood and implemented. In fact, you point out that the courts should understand the law. I find that—

Mr. Emile Therien: Janice and others alluded to the survey done by Transport Canada and the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police. Most police officers will tell you that when they go to court and meet the crown attorney or whatever he is, it's the first time he hears of the case, and half the time he's really confused. He's not really sure of the law. This is in the study. There's a real educational process within the criminal justice system that is required and needed.

Ms. Eleni Bakopanos: Don't you think that should be done at the provincial level in collaboration with the other levels?

Mr. Emile Therien: It should be done at all levels, municipal, provincial, etc. But I think there should be a pool of funds to make sure that happens. I'm talking money here.

Ms. Eleni Bakopanos: This is a question for anyone who wishes to answer it. I'm really more concerned about the new drivers as opposed to the repeat offenders, because I think we went through the whole process of discussing what are some of the options that can be used. But for new drivers, is there a case to be made that maybe we shouldn't be giving licences at ages 16 or 18, that maybe we should be raising the age level?

Mr. Emile Therien: If you live in northern Ontario and there's no public transportation system and you're a 16-year-old who has a job at McDonald's that's 15 miles away, hitchhiking is not a very good alternative.

Ms. Eleni Bakopanos: It's a question. It's another option.

Mr. Stan Griffin: The research done by TIRF in the late 1980s that led to our push for graduated licensing said that it's better you introduce graduated licensing at 16 and give people an effective environment in which to learn to drive than to delay it a couple of years. The most important factor is experience. You have to gain that at some point. If you delay the licensing age, all you're doing is delaying that. So I think the advice from the academic research is not necessarily to change the licensing age but to change the system under which they learn to drive.

Mr. Raynald Marchand: If I may, Mr. Chairman, the 16-year-old is theoretically under legal drinking age.

Ms. Eleni Bakopanos: Yes, but they do drink.

• 1130

Mr. Raynald Marchand: Our recent statistics have tended to include the fact that the 16-, 17- or 18-year-old doesn't tend to be the repeat offender or the person who drinks and drives in today's society. It was a number of years ago, but that has changed.

We also have another opportunity with the novice driver. We know that people who have alcohol dependency problems have problems throughout life in society, not just with driving but with other things. We have an opportunity to do prevention. If these people don't become alcohol dependent, if they don't become alcoholics, then they'll be able to drive if they're not under the influence. We have to come back to that, but very little is being done in terms of alcohol dependency prevention at a young age. Very often, we see—

[Translation]

Ms. Eleni Bakopanos: Not only alcohol, but also drugs.

Mr. Raynald Marchand: Drugs as well.

Ms. Eleni Bakopanos: Because otherwise you are not dealing with the main problem among youth.

Mr. Raynald Marchand: Studies have shown that the favourite drug of young people is still alcohol. Studies in high schools have also demonstrated that as soon as a person reaches legal drinking age, there's a decrease in his consumption of illegal drugs and increased consumption of alcohol. This is particularly the case in Quebec, the province I'm most familiar with.

Ms. Eleni Bakopanos: Thank you.

[English]

The Chairman: Last question.

Ms. Eleni Bakopanos: I have just one general question also. This may take forever, but perhaps you can try to be precise.

Why is it that the courts are not enforcing the law that is in place?

Mr. Emile Therien: Let me give you an example.

Ms. Eleni Bakopanos: It's a loaded question.

Mr. Emile Therien: In 1985, if you recall—and I'm not a lawyer so I'm not an expert on it—a lot of cases were stayed in Ontario just because of the length of time that had elapsed. Of those cases, 85% involved impaired driving charges. Were they a priority for the courts in Ontario? I don't know.

I'll give you another example. In Quebec, a bunch of impaired driving charges were thrown out of court. Do you know what the issue was? We're talking about a technicality here. The breathalyzer machine has to be calibrated whenever, although I don't know when exactly. Four technicians were employed by whatever ministry it is in Quebec that does this. One was on sick leave, another was on holidays, and the others were doing their job. Quebec is a big province, so they found out that in various cities in urban areas of Quebec these machines had not been technically calibrated for a period of eighteen months. I think they were supposed to be done every six months. The good lawyer said to look at that point.

These are some of the things that are happening. It's not a question of the law, of not being taken to court. It's a matter of things that don't happen before that person actually makes his first appearance in court.

Ms. Eleni Bakopanos: Anyone else? No? Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The Chairman: Mr. Harris, Mr. Cadman, any quick ones?

Mr. Dick Harris: No, I'd just say thanks again for the very excellent presentations.

The Chairman: Mr. Saada, did you have another one?

[Translation]

Mr. Jacques Saada: First of all, I can understand that there is a zero-tolerance requirement for young drivers to go against what you described as the general attitude. The purpose is not so much to prevent impaired driving but rather to develop the right attitude, if I understand correctly.

Mr. Raynald Marchand: Yes.

Mr. Jacques Saada: Secondly, I noted some contradictions. On one hand, I'm told that

[English]

hard-core drivers buy more vehicles when their vehicles are impounded. On the other side, I was hearing that they don't have enough money to undergo programs and so on. I understand it's not as clear as that.

Mr. Mark Yakabuski: I don't know that it's a question of buying vehicles. I think it's what Ms. Schmidt said later, namely, that they jump into somebody else's vehicle—a family member's or a relative's or someone like that. That's perhaps more likely to be the case than necessarily going out to Turpin Pontiac Buick to pick up a new car from the lot.

Ms. Janice Schmidt: To clarify what we have found, in British Columbia and Manitoba they have experienced the same thing. The vehicles that are purchased are what you would call your $50 to $100 beaters. These are not high-end vehicles. They're basically buying vehicles that are disposable because they know those vehicles are going to be taken. These are not long-term expenditures.

Mr. Jacques Saada: So they don't buy them at Turpin. That's what I heard, right? Thank you.

Voices: Oh, oh!

Mr. Jacques Saada: I also have a question concerning decriminalization. I understand fully that you are alerting us to the possibility of the need to reflect about it, but you're not proposing it. But when we take comparisons between countries, I think we ought to be very careful also to compare what is comparable. We cannot compare only the punitive measures and their impacts to determine what works and what doesn't work. We have to take into account what kinds of programs are available, what kinds of systems are in place. That's much more complex than simply figures of recidivism.

• 1135

Mr. Emile Therien: That's an important point, because Ray attends international conference on behalf of our council.

Sweden went down to a .08 legal limit to cure all its problems. Two years later, it was .05. A year after that, it dropped to .02. There has been no dent in the Swedish impaired driving problem whatsoever. Sweden is not a good example for the rest of the world. This is what I'm saying. You can't say that we should do it just because they do it. I'm just saying it's something this committee and the government should look at.

Mr. Jacques Saada: Thank you very much for that last opportunity.

The Chairman: Mr. John McKay, your questions are so insightful that if you have a couple more nuggets, you can throw them out.

Mr. John McKay: I thank you for your generosity at times, Mr. Chair.

One of the things we've kept hearing about time after time is the time line that the police officer has. My recollection is that it's something in the order of eight-plus hours from the point of charge to the point of conviction, or even from the point of going to the scene of the accident to the point of conviction. That's an enormous amount of time by anybody's standards, and I think it shrinks to five if there's a plea. Given the state of technology, I have yet to hear the coherent argument as to why a lot of this can't be done right there on the scene. Again, what's the argument?

Mr. Emile Therien: I think a lot of the methods are not allowed in the current law, but Ray will clarify that.

Mr. John McKay: I know, but that's what we're changing here. That's apparently what we're doing.

Mr. Emile Therien : Well, we're thinking of changing it.

Mr. John McKay: We're circling.

Mr. Emile Therien: We're circling, yes.

Mr. John McKay: In 1985 we made a bunch of changes that you argue were not effective. One of the ones that presumably was put in in 1985 was this great time line and this great paper chase that people put in place. If I hear the testimony correctly, the police are as frustrated as they can be. It does seem like a ridiculous amount of time for a conviction.

Let's go back to ground zero here. Why can't we do this at the scene? Is there any technological reason?

Mr. Emile Therien: I think we referred to that.

Mr. Raynald Marchand: One of our recommendations was to allow communication. Right now, the law says the officer must take it to the police station, so that increases the amount of time involved. That's one of the recommendations we also have for the two hours, so two of our recommendations do address that.

A member of the panel earlier asked somebody why they won't drink and drive, and they answered that it's because they are afraid of getting caught. Very often that in and of itself, the idea of getting caught, is the deterrent. Being processed through the system probably isn't in the forefront of people's minds as much as getting caught is. They're afraid of getting caught.

When we spend a tremendous amount of time in the court system and we have no officers on duty on the street, people know that. If we can keep our officers out there by facilitating the fact that they can access phone lines right there, by streamlining the process, we can keep more of our officers on the road. That presence is what deters a great number of the social drinkers, and also some of the hard-core drinkers. It's the visible presence. When that presence is at the police station, it's gone.

Mr. Emile Therien: You refer to RIDE programs or STEP programs and I think to CounterAttack. Pardon my eastern Canada bias here, but if you have a RIDE program in Ottawa tonight, with the first person who blows over the legal limit, that's the end of the RIDE program. The police have to take the person down to the station and process him, because the resources are not there.

Mr. John McKay: I see.

Mr. Emile Therien: That's the end of it, and the police will tell you that.

Mr. John McKay: Technically, and from the standpoint of getting an appropriate sample, there's no reason they have to do that, is there?

Mr. Emile Therien: Not if you incorporate some of the recommendations of the Canada Safety Council.

Mr. John McKay: So that's two hours right there.

Mr. Emile Therien: That's two hours.

Mr. John McKay: If you chop two hours, you're going to get a lot more enthusiasm on the part of the police to be involved in this sort of exercise.

Thank you.

The Chairman: Thank you, Mr. McKay.

The final word goes to Mr. Harris, and it will be very short.

Mr. Dick Harris: Ah, come on, Mr. Chairman.

Voices: Oh, oh!

The Chairman: Oh, all right.

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Mr. Dick Harris: It seems to me that with all the technology we have in this world we could come up with a device where you would administer a test and the device would be accurate enough and durable enough and respected enough that the reading that came out would be the final judge of whether that person was driving impaired or not; and that evidence, in all understanding and common sense, should be accepted as the final evidence of whether the person was guilty or innocent of being impaired. It seems to me that common sense doesn't prevail in our court system when the evidence is presented.

It seems to me also, listening to the evidence over the last couple of weeks, that we are having far more success with administrative sanctions than we are with legal sanctions in the court. So I wonder if maybe we should turn this whole issue over to an administrative enforcement, where it's going to be free of all these stupid court challenges that come up by lawyers who are milking this cash cow for all it's worth, and the charter challenges and the civil libertarians and the human rights people who come out of the woodwork despite all the numbers that are out there, the 1,400 people killed, the tens of thousands injured, the costs. Despite all these facts, they're determined that some poor person who goes out and gets smashed and drives down the road is not really responsible, that it's society or some other thing.

Mr. Emile Therien: You're looking at traffic court. That's what we're talking about.

Mr. Dick Harris: Well, I don't know. I just get so frustrated when I see the—

Mr. Emile Therien: Yes, but I also say—and this really gets back to what we discussed earlier—before you go there you have to look at the whole aspect of decriminalization, because it's easier to have having an administrative system work in a traffic court than in a criminal court of law.

Mr. Dick Harris: There's no argument; when you get killed by a drunk driver, you're dead. There's no challenge to that, and it seems to me, with all the technology, there should be no challenge to a device that spits out a coupon and says you're .09 or you're 1.2, so you're guilty.

The Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Harris.

Mr. McKay, in response to your comments, I think Ontario, in their presentation to us, gave evidence of the situation. They're not aware of a device that currently can give, looking at the field conditions and the calibration, accurate testing. That's why they can't do it as you would suggest. Also there's the problem of a right to counsel.

Mr. John McKay: I know you go into this right to counsel, and that's part of the problem with Mr. Harris's position. You can't obtain a criminal law sanction by an administrative process. If you're going to obtain a criminal law sanction, you then open it up to all of the fun and games of my colleagues.

It strikes me as strange that there is not something technologically feasible that a police officer could administer and reduce the time.

The Chairman: I'd like to thank the panel very much. It has been a long but very informative morning. There's no question that you've added to our debate and our consideration, and we very much appreciate your input here this morning.

With respect to the committee, I'd like a feeling of the committee. We're scheduled to consider the draft report on Tuesday, March 9, 1999, in the afternoon. Are you ready for it? Do you want to defer it another day?

Ms. Eleni Bakopanos: No, we're ready.

Mr. John McKay: I'm glad you're ready. I have no idea.

The Chairman: Mr. Harris has the floor.

Mr. Dick Harris: I understand that we've had witnesses deferred to March 9, 1999.

The Chairman: Yes, we have Guardian Interlock on Tuesday, March 9, 1999, from 9.30 to 10.30 a.m., toxicology experts with an emphasis on drugs from 10.30 a.m. to noon, and then our department officials from noon to roughly 1 p.m.

Mr. Dick Harris: So are you talking about going over the draft report?

The Chairman: Yes, the afternoon is when we're scheduled to do it. I wonder if everybody is ready for it, to give instructions to our drafters.

Ms. Eleni Bakopanos: We can start working on it.

Mr. Dick Harris: Okay, I misunderstood what you were saying.

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Ms. Eleni Bakopanos: We can always add things in. It's a draft.

Mr. Dick Harris: Sure.

Mr. Chuck Cadman: I won't argue, because I can't be there that day anyway.

The Chairman: Thank you.

The meeting is adjourned.