| Bill 26 - Traffic Safety Amendment Act (.05 Bill) |
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Bill 26, Traffic Safety Amendment Act, 2011 2nd Reading November 23, 2011
Mr. Anderson: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It’s my pleasure today to rise and speak to this government’s Bill 26, which proposes changes to the Traffic Safety Act concerning drinking and driving. The two main points are that those charged with impaired driving over .08 will have their licence suspended at least until their trial is settled, and those blowing between .05 and .08 will lose their licence and have their vehicle seized for three, 15, or 30 days. I want to say, first off, that I appreciate and fully support the goal behind this bill. I hope every person in this Legislature understands the carnage and the pain that drinking and driving causes on our streets. Frankly, it’s a plague, and it kills so many innocent people in our midst, not the least of which, of course, was the horrendous – horrendous – accident that occurred in Grande Prairie very recently. These are terrible things, and we should be doing everything that we can to eliminate intoxicated driving from out of our midst.
However, I want to be equally clear that this law, in my view, will not achieve that goal. In fact, I fear that because it will be so ineffective in doing so and will cause such a distraction to law enforcement, it may even result in the exact opposite, and I’m going to explain why.
Alberta’s drinking and driving rates are higher than in most provinces, and this is unacceptable, as everyone here would agree. Clearly, with this bill the government recognizes that it needs to do a better job, and that is a good first step. Albertans do need to know that drinking and driving is not acceptable, and it is clear this government is not getting that message through as well as they should. I’ve often commented that I haven’t been through a checkstop in at least 10 years in this province. That’s a problem. That says to me that we’re not doing a good enough job on our streets enforcing existing drunk driving penalties.
I’m going to explain why I think this drastic law uses the wrong tools and targets the wrong people. First, the suspension of licences until trials are over, I believe, is a legally flawed step because it presumes guilt on what is a pretty serious allegation, that of driving under the influence. This isn’t a parking ticket. It’s not one of those things where, you know, the car is parked in an illegal spot, and you get a parking ticket. There’s a presumption that you need to pay that parking ticket. If you don’t show up, you know – it’s just presumed that it’s a strict liability offence, as it’s called, and you’re going to pay the parking ticket.
This is not a parking ticket. This is much more serious than that. It is not only much more serious, the evidence surrounding whether someone is intoxicated at the wheel or not is a lot more difficult to prove. These breathalyzer tests are often not accurate. Most of the time they are, but oftentimes they’re not. There are many different factors that go into proving somebody has driven under the influence. So it’s not as simple and straightforward as a speeding ticket or a traffic ticket, for example. In other words, presuming someone is guilty essentially until proven innocent I don’t think should be allowed in this case.
Second, it is pretty arbitrary in terms of the penalty. I feel that the penalties in this act penalize people more in parts of the province that have longer court delays than others. The Minister of Transportation admitted in the paper just the other day that it could be two years or more before a court would even get to hear this, depending on where you are in the province. Now, even if you support this punishment for people who haven’t been proven guilty yet, it just isn’t fair to punish some people more simply because their local courts are more backed up.
Like most Albertans I don’t have any sympathy for drunk drivers who cause death and carnage on our streets, and I do think the government needs to find ways to make punishments more intimidating. That’s the key. We need to hammer, absolutely throw the book at – criminally and administratively throw the book at – those who are the problem, drunk drivers, those who are blowing over .08, those who are repeat offenders, who go out and endanger lives over and over and over again. Those are the folks that we need to crack down on hard, not the folks that are blowing between .05 and .08.
I will say, though, that tougher penalties aren’t the only thing that we can do to reduce drunk driving, and they probably aren’t even the most effective. I think that more education, more public service announcements in our high schools in particular, and more checkstops – most importantly, more checkstops – and enforcement of our existing laws are the first steps we should be taking. Again, I haven’t been through a checkstop in over 10 years. I travel that highway 2 between Airdrie and Calgary when I’m home in the constituency many times a week, evenings and weekends, and there are just never checkstops on that road. And I know there are drunk drivers. I’ve seen them on the road.
The bigger concern for me in this bill is the proposed administrative penalties. Seizing the car and licence of Albertans found with a blood-alcohol level of between .05 and .08 is very troubling to me. I don’t think you have to be a lawyer to see what’s wrong with this one. Today I’ll narrow it down to four main criticisms.
My first point is that cracking down on drivers between .05 and .08 is going after the wrong people. I’m talking about the couple who are out on a date who have a glass of wine or two or a beer or two over dinner or someone who stops for a beer or two with his pals after work on a Friday night. Let me clarify one thing. This law doesn’t affect me personally because I don’t drink. These are the regular folks out in Alberta who will be affected, and they shouldn’t be affected. They’re law-abiding citizens that present no danger to the public.
The stats that I’ve seen are pretty clear, and they fit with common sense. According to a 2008 report of all the drivers who have been killed on our highways, about 60 per cent of the perpetrators of the accident, the ones who caused the accident, had no alcohol in their system. Of course, that’s just because, obviously, there are a lot of accidents on the streets. So 40 per cent did have alcohol in their system. The next largest group are those that were double the legal limit, so they were more than .16 over the legal limit. That’s about 22 per cent of those folks who caused fatal accidents.
So 60 per cent no alcohol; 22 per cent twice the legal limit. Then it’s drivers between .08 and .16. That group is around 11 per cent of all fatalities caused on the roads. Then, if you can believe it, next place are drivers with an alcohol content between .01 and .05. They equal roughly 3.5 per cent of the accidents caused on our streets by everybody. Bringing up the rear, between .05 and .08 is that group. Around 2 per cent of the fatalities on our roads are caused by people who had a blood-alcohol level of between .05 and .08. Two per cent. This sounds like a very low level of causation to me.
People who are in favour of this law point to British Columbia. They point to how the law there has cut down drinking and driving and fatalities on the road caused by drinking and driving. Correlation, Mr. Speaker, is not causation. We should all know that by now. The administrative penalties in B.C. – and there are some differences in the legislation between B.C. and Alberta. In B.C. there’s a lot of very stiff fines attached to this .05 to .08 level. Our proposed legislation here doesn’t have those same fines. There are kind of indirect fines of impounding vehicles, and so forth, but there’s no direct fines.
Because of that money, all of a sudden that became a cash cow. Of course, when you give politicians or police officers or police agencies, who obviously need money to do their work, when you make a cash cow out of something, guess what? Enforcement goes up. So there were more checkstops, there was more enforcement, and because of that, yes, they caught more of the folks, not just between .05 and .08 but the people above .08. Correlation is not causation. The B.C. law did not cause a decrease in traffic deaths. The decrease in traffic deaths because of drunk driving was caused by more enforcement in the province of British Columbia, which is a good thing. That’s good, but we should be able to do that in Alberta without resorting to these draconian measures. I’m sure the government has found some different stats and studies, and I look forward to hearing about them. I do. But I don’t think anyone can argue that the real danger in Alberta – I don’t think there’s any report that’s going to be circulated here that doesn’t conclude that the real problem, those who are causing by far the most carnage on our streets, are those who are blowing above the legal limit, particularly two times above the legal limit, but definitely over .08.
This is certainly what the federal government concluded. They examined a proposal recently to reduce the Criminal Code level to .05 and decided that it was actually a bad idea. They acknowledged that some people are impaired between .05 and .08 but decided that the existing laws were adequate; namely, the ability of officers to charge people with impaired driving regardless of what the hand-held breathalyzer says if the driver shows signs of impairment. That was good enough. They were not convinced that every driver between .05 and .08 deserves punishment, and neither am I. If an officer isn’t sure and wants to err on the side of public safety, that’s what the 24-hour suspensions are for.
I’m going to quote from today’s Calgary Herald editorial just because I think that it brings forward some good points in an articulate way. They said:
The current 24-hour suspension is reasonable for public safety, referring to what I just talked about, but stiff penalties for people who are not convicted of any criminal offence is going too far, especially considering that hand-held roadside testing devices can be inaccurate and their results are not even admissible in court.
That’s what the Herald editorialist thinks. Granted, that’s just one opinion, but I think it’s a practical one and a true one.
The power to hand out the 24-hour suspensions makes a lot of sense. If the police feel that a person might be a little bit impaired but not enough to warrant a criminal charge, they can suspend the licence for 24 hours, get that person off the road just to make sure. They can just err on the side of public safety. They’re not sure if the person is intoxicated or not, so err on the side of public safety. I think that’s good. I think we already have the tools in place to deal with these folks on the border, in the red zone.
The other issue is how this law is more unfair for rural Albertans. It’s easy for the Premier or any other person from a large city centre to say that if you want a glass of wine with dinner, just take public transit home or a cab home. But I know that even in Airdrie cabs are not always convenient, and in more rural parts of Alberta they are nonexistent. My hon. Colleague from Calgary-Glenmore can elaborate on this point in his comments as I know he’s brought it up before.
I’d also mention the fact that the policeman on the side of the road is judge and jury on the spot. That’s a problem. It’s not something that I think I’m comfortable with within our legal system, to just have for such a serious offence the police officer be judge and jury.
Now, I’m going to jump to the argument that this new law will actually reduce the number of DUI charges and distract from the goal of actually getting dangerous drivers off of the road. Let me explain. I mentioned that police already have the 24-hour suspensions for those they judge to be mildly impaired or who blow between .05 and .08. They call you a cab, they fill out a onepage form, and they get back to keeping the streets safe. That’s what they do now. But these mandatory seizures are going to tie them up a lot. They’re going to have to babysit a person’s car until the tow truck comes. Instead of 15 minutes, they’re going to be tied up for an hour or two because your car needs to be taken away.
So my question would be: how many folks with a blood-alcohol level over .16 or over .08 are going to drive by this officer while he’s waiting for someone’s family car to get towed away? Our police are overworked as it is, and this is not a good use of their time. The .05 to .08, these people are not the problem. It’s the .08s and above.
The other danger is that this penalty is strict enough that the police might start using it instead of going through with criminal charges for drunk drivers. [Mr. Anderson’s speaking time expired]
The Deputy Speaker: Standing Order 29(2)(a). Hon. Member for Calgary-Glenmore, on Standing Order 29(2)(a)?
Mr. Hinman: Yes. I’d like to ask the hon. Member for Airdrie- Chestermere if perhaps he couldn’t just finish what he was so eloquently sharing with us. It sounded quite pertinent.
The Deputy Speaker: The hon. member.
Mr. Anderson: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m almost done. The other danger is that this penalty is strict enough that the police might start using it instead of going through with criminal charges for drunk drivers. They might say, “Look, we’ve got this other way to get them; let’s not go through with the full criminal charges on the problem drunk drivers,” the ones that are really blowing over .08, because that’s much more complicated than just taking the person’s car away at .05 or .06. While there will be a bit more paperwork than the 24-hour suspensions, it will be quite swift compared to a proper criminal investigation. I fear that this easy penalty has enough teeth that not only will the innocent be overpunished but the guilty will be underpunished.
In closing, I want to repeat that certainly I – and I’ll let my own caucus speak for itself – side with the Albertans who are not happy with the job this government is doing to curb or prevent drunk drivers from menacing our roads, but I’m not convinced that the legally dubious suspension until trial provision and especially the targeting of those who have blood-alcohol levels between the .05 and .08 range is the way to go. I do not feel that this law is going to reduce drunk driving, I do not feel it is effective, and I feel that it is going to target people who are simply not the problem.
It’s certainly going to hurt different industries, the hospitality industry for example, as we’ve seen in B.C. If we were really targeting and reducing significantly the amount of deaths on our roads because this law was effective – you know what? – the damage to the hospitality industry would probably be justified. But that’s not the case. We’re going to be damaging an industry, and we’re not going to see any real improvement in traffic safety. That’s what I fear.
I hope that the members opposite in the government would consider at least maybe putting this to an all-party committee so that we could take a look at it, so that we could get all the studies in, so that we could get all the facts in and try to come up with a solution that’s actually going to make sense to the average Albertan.
With that, Mr. Speaker, I close my arguments.
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