Immediate Roadside Prohibition in Port Moody
In you were issued an Immediate Roadside Prohibition in Port Moody from June 15 until today, you should give us a call.
As CTV has reported, we obtained records through a Freedom of Information request from the Port Moody Police. The records show that the Port Moody Police have been providing false information to the Office of the Superintendent of Motor Vehicles concerning the maintenance of their Approved Screening Devices.
Each month the officer who completed the Certificate of Qualified ASD Calibrator would simply record the annual service expiry date for each device as one month in the future. Obviously, because it should be an annual date, it cannot simply change each month. But unless you had all of the records, as we do, you would never know that the date is incorrect.
The Office of the Superintendent of Motor Vehicles in-house tribunal would have no way of knowing that the officer was providing faulty evidence. The evidence of the police is preferred by the tribunal in the vast majority of review decisions. The police evidence is not put up to the same level of scrutiny as that of an applicant.
The inescapable conclusion is that the officer who is completing the Certificates in Port Moody is either dishonest or doesn’t know what they are doing. It is possible that they do not understand that the devices require service. It is possible that they do not know when each device is due for service. If they don’t know how to complete the form correctly, it demonstrates a significant lack of understanding of the process that calls into question, again, the reliability of the devices and the reliability of the people responsible for ensuring that they function properly.
And of course this is not the first time we have seen this in Port Moody. In October 2011 we revealed that the Port Moody Police had not been following proper calibration procedure for their ASDs for over a year. An investigation was ordered and the report has been completed, but never disclosed.
CTV reports that the Port Moody Police have decided on disciplinary action for the officer who mis-calibrated the ASDs, but it has never released the findings of the investigation.
As far as we’re concerned, this is a cover up. The CTV report says that the Port Moody Police are still reviewing how many drivers were affected and what should happen to them.
If this is actually the case, the arrogance of the Port Moody Police is beyond compare. If you are in jail convicted on the basis of fingerprints that were collected incorrectly and perhaps from the wrong location, the prosecutor will ensure that you are released as quickly as possible while the matter is investigated. In the case of Port Moody IRPs, almost all of the people affected will have served all of the punishment by the time the Port Moody Police come out of the closet. We’ve been asking for them to come clean for over nine months. They’re still in hiding.
We think they may be waiting to release the information until after the limitation period to sue has expired. They seem to be more concerned about serving themselves and protecting their own than protecting the public.
With respect to everyone who received an IRP in Port Moody since June 15, 2012, the prohibitions should be suspended immediately and ultimately they should be cancelled for each person. If the Government is at all serious about there being integrity in the system, they should review all of the police reports from Port Moody over the weekend to confirm that the certificates in each case are faulty as we have claimed. All of those drivers should be called and told that their IRPs are cancelled. And of course, their money should be refunded.
But the Government should be aware of this issue because we already succeeded on a review for this reason. So we don’t seriously think this will happen. Which is why we ask anyone who received an IRP in Port Moody since June 15 to give us a call. We have a plan to deal with these cases. If necessary, we’ll take the matter to court to get you justice.