Clamping down on drinking and driving

More Canadians could be taken off the streets for having less to drink.

A parliamentary committee is considering whether to recommend lowering the legal threshold for blood alcohol while driving from 0.08 miligrams per mililitres to 0.05 mg/ML.

The Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights has not set a date for when it will release its recommendation, but the committee's clerk said she expects it will be some time this spring. Any change to the legal limit would require amending the Criminal Code which must be done by Parliament.

"I think this has to be a non-partisan issue," said committee member Brian Murphy (Lib - Moncton-Riverview-Dieppe) at the Feb 23, 2009 hearing. "As parliamentarians, we want our roads to be safer."

If the committee recommends lowering the legal threshold, anyone found guilty of driving with a blood alcohol content above 0.05 mg/ML will be convicted of a criminal offence. Currently, first time offenders lose their license for a minimum of one year and face a fine between $1,000 and $5,000. They can also be imprisoned for up to 18 months.

Review a long time coming

The debate over lowering the legal limit has been going on for a decade, said committee member Joe Comartin (NDP - Windsor-Tecumseh).

"In the last Parliament, we concentrated on impairment because of drug consumption and put that system into place," he said in an interview. "This is the next major issue that had to be dealt with."

Comartin supports lowering the legal limit but said it is only the second best option for keeping drunk drivers off the road. He would rather see the provinces increase the length of their temporary license suspensions to at least seven days for first-time offenders.

All Canadian provinces and territories except Quebec issue license suspensions between four and 24 hours for drivers with a blood alcohol level under 0.08 mg/ML. In Ontario, a driver whose blood alcohol content is 0.05 mg/ML will have their license suspended for 12 hours.

Lowering the legal limit will at least double and perhaps triple the number of criminal drinking and driving cases being processed in Canada, according to Robyn Robertson, chief executive officer of the Traffic Injury Research Foundation.

This is a ride you don't want to take.

The limit of 0.08 mg/ML was established in 1969 and based on scientific consensus at the time. Studies now show drivers are significantly impaired at 0.05 mg/ML said Dr. Yvona Buczek, a toxicologist with the Ontario government.

Between Feb. 2008 and Mar. 2009 the committee heard 31 witnesses speak both for and against changing the legal limit.

Eric Lamoureux, manager of government relations for the Canadian Automobile Association, pointed out that the same committee said in a 1999 report that changing the legal limit to 0.05 mg/ML lacked public support.

"Until studies show overwhelmingly strong and consistent evidence for lowering the criminal blood alcohol content limit, it is our view that the current limit should be maintained and strongly enforced," Lamoureux said during a committee hearing in March.

Supporters say evidence in favour of lowering the legal threshold already exists.

Canada should follow the examples of other countries that have set their legal limit to 0.05 mg/ML, said Robert Solomon, who represented Mothers Against Drunk Driving at the hearings.

"The evidence indicates that every country that has introduced 0.05, or lowered their legal limt, has obtained significant traffic safety benefits," he said.

Drunk driving on the decline

Impaired driving has been on the decline for more than 25 years in Canada. Between 1981 and 2002, the rate of people charged with impaired driving decreased by 64 per cent, according to Statistics Canada. Between 2003 and 2007, the rate decreased by another eight per cent.

About one quarter of all crimes prosecuted in Canada are for impaired driving, said Robertson of the Traffic Injury Research Foundation. The conviction rate is just over half of all cases tried.

Robertson said her organization is against lowering the legal limit because increasing the number of impaired driving trials will put more stress on prosecutors and let more high-risk offenders walk free.

"Clearly, the specific deterrent effects of the law are being eroded when we can't even convict the offenders that we currently have coming through the justice system," Robertson said.