Meanwhile, no decisions. Two trickled in a few weeks ago. They upheld the prohibitions issued on the defective breathalyzers on the basis that Paul’s evidence was of no assistance to the tribunal. The reasons for this conclusion are difficult to discern and do not make any logical sense. We sought judicial review almost immediately and scheduled a hearing date in mid-September.
As expected, the Government is fighting us all the way.
There are plenty of wonderful things about living in Beautiful British Columbia. The Government is not one of them. We have little confidence in a Government that would rather defend overreaching conduct than admit they did wrong and correct the situation. It reminds us of the time they fought against a remedy for an unconstitutional law and then won. Sad.
We figure now the matching orders to the tribunal are to wait until one of three things happens:
1. Bill 15 is implemented;
2. The judicial review hearing results in success for the OSMV;
3. The Supreme Court of Canada finds the law totally good and clear.
None of these are likely in their totality, and the first won’t impact those who have already had their hearings. But in the meantime, the Government continues to want to rely on defective devices.
Where have all the defective devices gone?
So there’s that.
But, curiously timed, the BC police agencies and RCMP detachments have (except for Delta) all switched over to a different device. This is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, there is no continued punishment of people based on devices we have identified as defective. On the other, we cannot obtain years and years of calibration and maintenance records to expose any defects in the new devices.
Sweep it under the rug, and no one will notice.
Distract the lawyers with a shiny new machine, and no one will remember those who were unjustly punished.
Does anyone notice a trend of the Government constantly underestimating us? We do not forget, and we are paying attention. We notice.
Put your money where your mouth is, Acumen Law!
The one thing that we hadn’t done until last week was releasing the records about the defective devices to anyone. There were good reasons for this. We wanted to control the information that got out there about these devices. Our concern was that if it fell into the wrong hands, the argument would be misinterpreted, misused, or misunderstood.
We wanted to protect our clients’ interests.
And we also wanted to protect ourselves. We spent hundreds (literally) of hours seeking out these records, reviewing them, arriving at our suspicion, digging up evidence to confirm it, digging up more evidence to prove it, and then assembling it. This was an exercise that took years. There are countless evenings and weekends that were spent by our lawyers in the office reviewing FOI disclosure and printing off material.
To say that it has cost us thousands of dollars to put together this information is an underestimation. If we had been billing by the hour, plus disbursements (photocopying, etc.), the value of this document would exceed twenty thousand dollars.
Understandably, we didn’t want to give it away.
As time passes, and as the Government tries to sweep this under the rug with new machines and changes to the law, we think it’s important that British Columbians have access to this information to find out if they fall into the people affected by the problem. We’re happy to discuss your options with you if you fall into that category, but we want you to download it and try to discern the information for yourself soon.
To infinity and beyond
Just because we are giving the document away doesn’t mean we’re done the fight.
We have our first judicial review on the issue scheduled for September.
We have advanced other court challenges that we will also be updating you on as we get decisions.
We have sued the RCMP in Federal Court to try to stop them from using these devices. This was a lawsuit we filed ages ago, but litigation is a slow and complex process. It’s effectively declaratory now. But we’re still advancing our claim. It’s a long shot, but it’s an important cause for the public good, and we are still pursuing it. There will be developments on that front.
And for those of you awaiting a decision on your IRPs — you may fall into the category of those affected by this. We are not giving up on you. We never give up on anyone. Even if this particular problem with defective breathalyzers does not impact you, we’ve got your back.