President's Perspective

Criminalization does not make sense as a public policy direction for safety. The Criminal Code is a last resort, when other countermeasures cannot protect society. Its purpose is to address acts that violate basic societal norms, such as murder, robbery and assault. Existing regulatory tools can deal very effectively with traffic safety and worker safety as long as they are adequately enforced.

Let's look at blood alcohol levels as an example. Almost all Canadian jurisdictions have administrative driver's licence suspensions at a BAC of 0.05 or lower. The procedure is simple and can be carried out by police officers at the side of the road. Most importantly, it protects the public by providing a swift and certain response. In contrast, an officer must take about four hours to lay a criminal BAC charge.

If the criminal BAC were reduced to 0.05, roadside suspensions would be replaced with a legal process that is intricate, punitive and costly.

In an October 1990 ruling known as the Askov decision, the Supreme Court declared that individuals have the right to trial within a reasonable amount of time. Within months of that decision, 50,000 charges were stayed in Ontario; many of these were impaired driving charges.

Charging low BAC drivers criminally would increase the caseload on an already overburdened system. Ontario Chief Justice Roy McMurtry says Ontario has the worst court backlog in the English-speaking world. Supreme Court of Canada Justice Beverly McLaughlin expressed concern that serious trial delays across the country hurt the integrity of the justice system and public confidence in the administration of justice.

There is absolutely no evidence that charging low BAC drivers under the federal Criminal Code would prevent more deaths and injuries than measures now in place under provincial and territorial jurisdiction. Indeed, using the Criminal Code would likely mean more drinking drivers go scot free.

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Safety Canada April 2003