Debate over the impaired driving Bill C-46 is focused on balancing Charter rights against the need to protect lives. For Senators, the Charter won out.
Last week, the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee voted to remove the random breath testing provision from Bill C-46, a controversial piece of impaired driving legislation.
Bill C-46 was introduced in the House of Commons last spring by Jody Wilson-Raybould, the Minister of Justice for Canada. Among its sweeping changes to impaired driving legislation in the province was a provision removing the requirement that an officer form a reasonable suspicion of alcohol in the body before asking a driver to blow into a roadside breathalyzer. Instead, the police would be able to demand a sample at random from any driver.
In testimony before the Senate Committee, numerous legal experts opined that this would have a disproportionate effect on people of colour, including Black and Indigenous Canadians, who are already more frequently targeted for random traffic stops and carding.
Historically, the Supreme Court of Canada has found that random roadside breath testing violates the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Currently, for breath testing to proceed, there are three requirements: a reasonable suspicion to demand a sample; a need to conduct the test immediately; and the guarantee that results of the roadside test cannot be used as proof of impairment or blood alcohol level at trial. However, Bill C-46 would do away with all of these requirements except the prohibition on using the results as evidence in court.
The random breath testing provisions in Bill C-46 have been the subject of severe criticism from defence lawyers across Canada, the majority of whom appear to oppose the bill. Defence lawyers argued that these aspects of C-46 were unconstitutional and in violation of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms right to be secure against unreasonable search and seizure.
Advocates in favour of random testing testified before the Senate, pointing to places where random breath testing is used and has been associated with a decline in impaired driving deaths. The debate appears to be focused around the balancing of Charter rights against the need to protect lives. For the Senate, the Charter won out.
Read the full Huffington Post article here.