Canada in Line with International Blood Alcohol Laws

The Canada Safety Council says a proposal to reduce the blood alcohol concentration (BAC) for impaired driving in the Criminal Code of Canada shows a lack of awareness of blood alcohol laws in Canada and internationally. Parliament is set to consider a private member’s bill that would change the criminal BAC from 0.08 (80 milligrams of alcohol in 100 millilitres of blood) to 0.05.

“What the bill fails to recognize,” explains Canada Safety Council president Emile Therien, “is that that most provinces and territories already impose license suspensions on drivers at lower BACs. Under their highway traffic acts, driving with a BAC of 0.05 is not allowed. The issue at stake is whether or not drivers should be criminalized if their BAC is below 0.08.”

Therien agrees it is important to send a strong message to drinking drivers with BACs below 0.08. However, he maintains this can be done effectively without resorting to the Criminal Code. He points out that most drivers involved in alcohol-related fatal crashes have very high BACs, over 0.15. Evidence is lacking that charging low-BAC drivers with a criminal offense would save more lives than continuing to use traffic regulations.

Proponents of the lower criminal BAC claim Canada’s blood alcohol laws are out of step with other countries internationally, for example in Europe, which have legislated a 0.05 limit.

To determine whether there is in fact an international trend to criminalize drivers at 0.05, the Canada Safety Council commissioned a study in 2002. Law professor David Paciocco, from the University of Ottawa, compared Canada 's blood alcohol legislation with similar laws in countries which have similar legal and political traditions. Canada’s Blood Alcohol Laws – an International Perspective was updated in March 2006, and can be downloaded from the Council’s website as a PDF.

Professor Paciocco found that countries and jurisdictions with 0.05 limits tend not to use criminal law approaches. Canada ’s practice of not using criminal law for drivers under 0.08 is in line with international practices. Of the 77 jurisdictions examined in the report, only eight, or slightly over 10 percent, see fit to treat 0.05 as a crime. He concluded that if Canada were to reduce the BAC in the Criminal Code to 0.05, it would not be following an international trend. Rather it would be joining a minority of nations who criminalize at that level.

The Canada Safety Council advocates harmonization of provincial and territorial regulations, as well as enhanced intervention programs, enforcement and public education, and also recommends treating administrative licence suspensions in a similar way to traffic violations.

The Council’s position is that over-use of the Criminal Code would compromise the effectiveness of regulations which have contributed to Canada ’s impressive progress in the fight against impaired driving. In 2003, road crashes involving a driver who had been drinking took 902 lives, half of which were the drinking drivers. This figure is down 30 percent from 1995, when 1,296 motor vehicle road fatalities involved a drinking driver.

Return to top of page

Canada’s Blood Alcohol Laws – an International Perspective (March 2006)