Quote:
Originally Posted by MarchHare
From the Calgary Herald article linked in the OP:
Emphasis added.
Are you disputing this point? If so, please provide a link to support your claim. I would also suggest you write to the editor of the Herald and ask them to print a correction if their reporting is inaccurate.
|
To clarify this point: the roadside testing device is not the device that takes the "breath sample" that is admitted into evidence in court. It's merely a screening device, where a "fail" on the screening device prompts the officer to read you the breath demand. At that point, a different device (in Calgary it's usually an Intoxilyzer 400D) is used to collect a breath sample, and that's where you get your reading from.
The roadside devices are considerably less accurate, partly because they're really only designed to place you into a broad range of readings for the purposes of screening people who will be given a breath demand. This may partly account for the confusion--there are actually two separate devices in issue here)
So this law essentially proposes imposing criminal sanctions (and let's not pretend these aren't criminal sanctions--losing your car and paying a fine are criminal penalties. To pretend otherwise is sophistry) without imposing a burden on the Crown to a) provide you with an opportunity to contest the charges against you or b) obtain, or lead in court, any evidence satisfactory to establish your guilt.
I'm actually a bit puzzled by the BC court of appeal's decision on this basis--I'll have to read the whole thing and see what their reasoning was.
To clarify one other point: a number of people have said that driving with a BAC under .08 is not an offence under the Criminal Code. This is not, strictly speaking, true. There are two separate offences under the Code with respect to impaired driving: driving with a BAC over .08, and driving while the ability to operate a motor vehicle is impaired by alcohol.
If drivers between .05 and .08 are such a problem, surely we can just instruct the Crown to attempt to obtain a conviction on the second offence, without resorting to some backdoor provision in a provincial act. Of course, the bizarre mess that is impaired law in Canada is partly the result of the Crown's continual inability to regularly obtain convictions on this charge; as a result they've continued to move the goalposts--the objective seems to be an offence without a defence in law, which is problematic in a whole new set of ways.