Friday's editorial comment:
Calgary's police chief has entered the fray in the debate over random breathalyzers.UPDATE: More thoughts from me (in the form of a recent column on the subject) on why random breathalyzers are a bad idea:
However, in doing so, Rick Hanson has inadvertently shown why there is a real need for caution in potentially going down this path.
Alberta's justice minister recently indicated the provincial government would support the introduction of random breath tests, and yesterday on QR77, police chief Rick Hanson declared his support, as well.
Hanson claims too many drunk drivers get off on technicalities, and allowing officers to request a breathalyzers without the need for reasonable suspicion would prevent that.
What Hanson calls "technicalities", however, in many cases are legitimate questions. Police should have a reason for pulling people over, and if random breath testing also means police can stop people for no apparent reason, then that is cause for concern.
Essentially police would never have to justify pulling someone over if they could simply pull out a breathalyzer and use that as an excuse for stopping and detaining someone.
The concern raised by civil liberties organizations is that there needs to be check and balances when it comes to why and how people are being stopped by police.
There are all sorts of shortcuts we could enact into law that would make things easier for police officers, but we are on a slippery close if we simply disregard any concern for civil liberties.
Chief Hanson was on the right side on the liberty equation when he opposed the gun registry - other police chiefs were using basically the same argument to defend the registry that Hanson is using to justify random breathalyzers.
We should be concerned about giving police this power - Chief Hanson has shown us why.
It may not be too late to pull Ottawa back from the random breath test (RBT) abyss. While the government appears poised to introduce RBTs, one of several recommendations made last year by the Commons justice committee, they've first posted a discussion paper online and have sought feedback from Canadians.Also, see the concerns raised by the Canadian Civil Liberties Association
While polls show support in principle for RBTs, hopefully Canadians will consider what this would mean in practice and will tell Ottawa to scrap the idea.
Canadians are clearly concerned about impaired driving, and supporters of RBTs maintain that allowing police to force citizens at random to provide a breath sample will help address the problem.
However, merely touting the effectiveness of a proposed police tool does not tell the whole story.
No doubt random, warrantless searches and phone taps would produce glowing crime-reduction statistics. Surely, though, no reasonable person would find that tolerable in a democratic society.
Consider, for example, random bag and locker searches at schools -- wouldn't that be effective in dealing with drugs and weapons? But the debate would have nothing to do with its effectiveness and everything to do with its intrusiveness.
Indeed, the Supreme Court of Canada has ruled specifically against the random use of drug-sniffing dogs in schools. The court found that it violated Section 8 of the charter, which guarantees against unreasonable search or seizure.
The ruling also addressed the case of a man who was found with drugs in his bag at the Calgary Greyhound bus station. The court found police "did not have grounds for reasonable suspicion" when making use of a drug-sniffing dog. It's not hard to see how such a principle could apply to RBTs. Remember, this change would eliminate the requirement for reasonable suspicion.
But is the debate here merely one between the effectiveness of RBTs and their constitutional validity? Is the effectiveness of RBTs beyond question?
On the surface there would seem to be compelling evidence. However, it is evidence complicated by the fact that virtually all relevant jurisdictions have seen reductions in impaired driving over the last three decades.
In Alberta, for example, we saw a 10 per cent drop in impaired driving offences in 1993. That was followed in subsequent years by a 26 per cent drop, an 18.5 per cent drop, and a 6.5 per cent drop.
Those also happened to be the first few years of liquor privatization. Could we then credit the privatization of liquor sales for a reduction in impaired driving?
New Zealand is one of the countries which has implemented RBTs and is often cited by those who would import the policy here.
However, one study found that while it was expected the new law would mean an "immediate and obvious reduction in alcohol-related accidents," it was "clear that this did not happen." The reductions in 1993 -- the year the law was introduced -- were no different than reductions in 1991 or 1992.
Of course, one important distinction to note is that most other countries only allow RBTs within the confines of what we would call a checkstop.
Ottawa's proposal would allow police officers to ask anyone, anywhere, at anytime to submit to a breathalyzer test.
There are other means of combating impaired driving that do not entail giving police such an intrusive tool.
To its credit, the Commons committee has proposed some of them, including increased penalties for repeat and severely impaired offenders. They've also proposed creating a new indictable criminal negligence charge, and linking fines for a first impaired driving offence to blood-alcohol levels.
These proposals, coupled with an effective awareness campaign, could go a long way in making our streets safer.
It's unclear how effective random breath testing might be, but what is clear is that it could too easily be abused and that it represents the sort of unwarranted search from which the charter is to keep us protected from.
UPDATE #2: The Calgary Herald editorial board comes out against random breathalyzers.
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