Part of the difficulty we have right now is anticipating what position the Court will accept when the parties go in to argue for a remedy. The Government is preparing to argue that at best you should simply get a re-hearing with the same tribunal but with one small tweak.
If they are successful, then you may want to consider moving to another province. As we stated before, you can get an IRP at your kitchen table based on a retelling of 4th party hearsay of an unnamed witness alleging driving. The evidence is usually recorded as “witness said was driving.” If you deny consumption, that is taken as proof that you did not drink since you last drove and that you had nothing to drink in the last 15 minutes. And then your car goes away on a tow truck, you lose your license, $4700, your job, house, etc.
If the Government regretted violating people’s Charter Rights they would simply cancel the prohibitions and deal with the repercussions. But their position is similar to that controlling sociopath you dated in your early 20s; they want you even though they know it’s wrong and they think if they can just have one more time to control you it will all work out. Unfortunately, in this case calling the police won’t help. The Government has control issues. But at least they’re not following you to work.
In any event, the point here is that you cannot anticipate that this Government will allow an inch of ground. We expect them to argue that people who did not dispute their 90-day Fail IRP should be disallowed any remedy, including that they not be permitted a re-hearing. So we are taking steps to try to address that.
We expect them to argue that people who disputed their 90-day Fail IRP should only be allowed a remedy if they sought to appeal the OSMV decision in Court.
We do not know where the Court will draw the line. Additionally, the Government can write the legislation in such a way that creates classes of people, limitations, etc.
Should you file a Petition to review the OSMV decision? We do not want people to not file and then find out later that they are then excluded from a remedy, even if the remedy is a re-hearing. For each person it is then a decision they have to make. We know that if our friends or family had a 90-day IRP for Fail we would certainly file a Petition to appeal the OSMV decision. There are advantages to filing for a review as soon as you can.
So we are filing Petitions to review OSMV decisions for clients because we wish to protect them in case this becomes the cut-off. For everyone else, we have a plan but we cannot announce it because it may compromise our strategy.