Toronto-area drivers stopped by OPP will have to give breath sample
Toronto-area drivers stopped by OPP will have to give breath sample
Yeah mandatory breathalyzer is fine and I think is more fair than having an officer making a judgement after you roll down your window.
If you drink, take transit or hire a ride. There's no two ways about drinking and driving.
I will be against mandatory weed tests as those don't test accurately enough yet. (Even if I'm not a marijuana user myself).
take transit
Ha! I can just take the one bus every 2 hours that goes by the bar.
If you can't make a plan to get home safely while you're sober, maybe you should go to a different bar, or not go altogether. Your right to get shitfaced doesn't cover being a danger to the public.
Yes, I'm the guy who would go to the bar with his friends, maybe have one drink at the beginning of the night, and make sure they got home safely.
If there is no reason to suspect a crime, then this seems like unreasonable search and seizure, which is unconstitutional. It's like randomly searching people's homes to see if anything illegal is going on. Actually worse, it's like searching EVERYONE'S home.
If you mention "the constitution" you are probably referring to another country.
In Canada, this would be a charter issue, but it's not a charter issue.
A requirement of driving is having BAC below 0.8.
This is a traffic stop, where the point is to confirm that there are not legal issues with the vehicle or its operation. The search of showing your license is already more of a privacy issue than providing a breath sample.If you're more curious about it, read section 8 of the charter.
Um, yeah, Canada has a Constitution and the Charter is a part of it:
The Constitution Act, 1982 gave Canada complete independence from Britain. Months of negotiations between the federal and provincial governments were held to determine how to “patriate” the country’s last British-held powers from Britain. The resulting Constitution Act, 1982 made several changes to Canada’s constitutional structure. The most important were the creation of an amending formula (the criteria that would have to be met to make future changes) and the addition of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/constitution
So, yeah, I am Canadian and laws in Canada can be unconstitutional. If you are curious about it our constitution, try finding basic information about it before condescending to teach someone else about it.
You do understand that Toronto isn't the US, and that other countries have other laws? Wether this is lawful or not is a different discussion
Canada has unreasonable search and seizure protections
It’s section 8 of the Charter
However our next PM (polling wise) said this when speaking to police in regards to the constitution limiting their powers
“We will make them constitutional, using whatever tools the Constitution allows me to use to make them constitutional. I think you know exactly what I mean,” Poilievre told the crowd.
Yeah, I do understand that we, like the US, also have a Constitution. Do you? Our Constitution includes a Charter of Rights and Freedoms which protects against unreasonable search and seizure. You should look it up sometime. Here's a starting point from the Canadian Encyclopedia:
https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/constitution
Edit: I should also say that protections against unreasonable search and seizure long predate the Canadian and US Constitutions and are derived from our countries' common lineage back to England. If you are ever confused about why Canada and US have many similar rights and freedoms, it is because both Canada and the US were British colonies before achieving independence.
I really don't so how this can be abused. You blow into the device and it reads out how much alcohol is in your breath. It takes seconds to do and cops can't discover anything else about you other than how much alcohol is in your breath. It's nothing like searching your home. It provides police with less information about you than your licence does, which cops can check anytime.
But it doesn't read BAC. It just detects organic compounds with methyl groups and the courts assume it is alcohol. That's usually a pretty safe bet if the person is also clearly inebriated. But now people who work with organic chemicals either at home or at work could get charged even with 0 actual BAC. Paint your bathroom with oil paint and have toluene in your system? Believe it or not, straight to jail.
This has been the law of the land in Alberta for several years and has withstood legal challenges so far.
I believe the argument goes: A driver's license is a privilige, not a right. Therefore forcing you to blow during a traffic stop to maintain the privilege of having your license isn't a breach of your constitutional rights.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
All drivers in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area who are pulled over by Ontario Provincial Police highway safety officers will now be asked to provide a breath sample — no matter what they're stopped for.
Officers will be conducting "mandatory alcohol screening" at every routine traffic stop as part of a new enforcement policy taking aim at drinking and driving, even if there is no reason to suspect a driver is impaired, the OPP said this week.
The policy will be implemented by officers operating out of OPP detachments in Toronto, Mississauga, Burlington, Cambridge, Aurora, Whitby, Niagara and Highway 407.
The Department of Justice says research shows up to 50 per cent of drivers with a blood alcohol level above the legal limit may not be detected at roadside check stops.
Shakir Rahim, director of criminal justice for the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, said his organization is "seriously concerned" the expansion violates the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which protects individuals from unreasonable search and seizure.
It concluded a definitive link between mandatory breath samples a decrease in drunk driving in those jurisdictions couldn't be established because other factors such as education campaigns and increased enforcement also played a role.
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