New impaired driving laws come into effect today. From now on, police officers throughout the country can demand a roadside breath test from any driver. the breath sample will be mandatory. police gonna ask for it even if they have no reasonable suspicion that someone has been driving. some lawyers think the new rule is violating people’s Charter rights. Paul Doroshenko, a criminal lawyer in Vancouver is with us today.
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“When the police pull you over or you are pulled up at a roadblock at any time you have contact with the police and you are sort of connected to driving, historically, the police could detect an odour of liquor on your breath to ask you some questions, separate you from the other people in the vehicle to try and determine whether or not you have got any alcohol in your body. And if the police came into conclusion that it was reasonable to conclude that you had alcohol in your body, they suspected that you had alcohol in your body, they could make a demand where you would have to provide a sample into a roadside breath tester to determine whether or not you are over the limit.”
“What the parliament has done now is something quite controversial. They have made it so the police no longer have to have any reason to make a demand. If they pull you over, they can just make a demand and make you blow even if you never had a drink in your life. So that is quite a substantial change in the way that the police procedure is gonna be at the roadside now. We expect people are just gonna be pulled over. We have already been told some police departments intend to make everybody blow into the breathalyzer right there at the roadside.”