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Police in Canada can now demand breath samples in bars, at home


RUPERTKBD

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https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/canada/police-in-canada-can-now-demand-breath-samples-in-bars-at-home/ar-BBS2ir9?li=AAggNb9

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It may sound unbelievable, but Canada’s revised laws on impaired driving could see police demand breath samples from people in bars, restaurants, or even at home. And if you say no, you could be arrested, face a criminal record, ordered to pay a fine, and subjected to a driving suspension.

 

You could be in violation of the impaired driving laws even two hours after you’ve been driving. Now, the onus is on drivers to prove they weren’t impaired when they were on the road.

 

“It’s ridiculous, it’s basically criminalizing you having a drink at your kitchen table,” Paul Doroshenko, a Vancouver criminal defence lawyer who specializes in impaired driving cases, told Global News.

“If you start to drink after you get home, the police show up at your door, they can arrest you, detain you, take you back to the (police station) and you can be convicted because your blood alcohol concentration was over 80 milligrams (per 100 millilitres of blood) in the two hours after you drove." 

 

Changes to Section 253 of the Criminal Code of Canada took effect in December giving police greater powers to seek breath samples from drivers who might be driving while impaired.

Under the new law, police officers no longer need to have a “reasonable suspicion” the driver had consumed alcohol. Now, an officer can demand a sample from drivers for any reason at any time.

 

While many Canadians have heard about that part of the new legislation, lawyers said the two-hour provision has gone unreported.

“The public has completely missed this one,” said Joseph Neuberger, a Toronto criminal defence lawyer.

 

He described a scenario in which someone has gone home and watches a hockey game, enjoys a few beers, and gets a knock on the door from police, who received a tip about someone in the house who was driving a vehicle suspiciously.

 

“The person answers the door and they say, ‘Sir, we’ve had a complaint about your driving, we need you to provide a sample," said Neuberger, noting if the person failed to provide the sample it would likely lead to arrest.

 

“It’s a serious erosion of civil liberties,” said Toronto criminal defence lawyer Michael Engel, whose practice focuses almost exclusively on impaired driving cases.

Engel said someone could be unjustly prosecuted. If a disgruntled business associate or spouse called police with a complaint and an officer went to investigate at the persons’ home or place of business, police could demand a breath sample.

 

“Husbands or wives in the course of separations would drop the dime on their partner,” Engel said, describing the potential for the law’s abuse by those calling police out of spite, for example.

“It casts the net too wide. It’s going to potentially criminalize innocent behavior." 

 

In an instance where someone was drinking in a public place, Doroshenko said it would be hard for someone to prove they weren’t impaired when they were driving earlier.

“If [the police] come an find you at the restaurant they can take you out of the restaurant despite the fact you’ve been drinking at the restaurant, maybe you weren’t going to drive away,” he said, arguing the rules are excessive.

 

“It is profoundly stupid, so most people assume it can’t be. But that’s what the law is now, you will see it happen -- I guarantee it."

 

The federal government brought in the revised law in an effort to reduce fatalities on roads.

 

“Impaired driving is the leading criminal cause of death and injury in Canada," said Minister of Justice and Attorney General Jody Wilson-Raybould in December.

 

“I believe these reforms will result in fewer road deaths and fewer Canadian families devastated by the effects of an impaired driver. This is one of the most significant changes to the laws related to impaired driving in more than 40 years and is another way that we are modernizing the criminal justice system."

 

While criminal lawyers predict the new law will be challenged, likely through appeal courts and even to the Supreme Court of Canada, they expect that process will take several years. In the meantime, they say drivers are vulnerable to unfair arrests and prosecution.

 

“We’re in a brave new world now,” said Engel.

 

I suppose the aim is to save lives, but I have to say that I'm not particularly excited about the prospect of police officers having this much discretionary power. Most are good people, but I've met plenty of cops in my day that wouldn't be above abusing it.

 

Case in point: On New Year's Eve, my wife and I drove to a friend's place for a party. The plan was to take a bus or cab home and go pick up the vehicle the next day. If I'm reading this correctly, I would somehow have to prove that I didn't intend to drive home and I could have been arrested, lacking such proof.

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This has to do with what I alluded to a while ago in another thread. Where if you hit someone while drunk, leave the scene, drive home then immediately start drinking and then claim you started drinking when you got home instead of staying at the scene you get off basically scot-free as they can't prove you were driving under the influence.

 

 

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This is a total violation of civil liberties. The fact that the Liberal government and the Minister of Justice think this is a solution is frightening. Jody Wilson-Raybould is an abject failure in her position if this fascist decision is best solution that she could come up with for "road deaths".

 

Seriously, Canada is a total joke from a justice perspective. Dangerous offenders get out of jail even when they are determined to still pose a risk to the public, but the Liberal government thinks it's perfectly fine to allow police access to private residences without a warrant, merely on hunch.

 

While I'm not hoping for Scheer and his gutless cronies to take power, I'm done with Turdeau and his band of thieves.

 

 

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9 minutes ago, peaches5 said:

This has to do with what I alluded to a while ago in another thread. Where if you hit someone while drunk, leave the scene, drive home then immediately start drinking and then claim you started drinking when you got home instead of staying at the scene you get off basically scot-free as they can't prove you were driving under the influence.

 

 

Which was put to use by........a RCMP officer. One of the most corrupt RCMP officers in the organization's history. A scumbag by the name of Benjamin Montgomery Robinson.

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34 minutes ago, Warhippy said:

I don't care, I really don't drink.  I think the likelihood of this actually being enforced in the manner that so many people are whinging about is laughably nil as well.

 

But, scared people gonna be scared

Slowly freedom slips away and the far left will say no big deal.

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56 minutes ago, Warhippy said:

I don't care, I really don't drink.  I think the likelihood of this actually being enforced in the manner that so many people are whinging about is laughably nil as well.

 

But, scared people gonna be scared

Opening laws to possible abuse is never a good idea. I don't care how 'unlikely' it is. Or how little I personally need to worry about it.

 

It's getting damned scary IMO watching individual rights erode away with nary a care from the general public. First all the attacks on free speech, the nonsense in provincial human rights codes, now this...

 

It's a slippery slope.

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16 minutes ago, Ryan Strome said:

Slowly freedom slips away and the far left will say no big deal.

I can see conservatives with a bent for being tough on crime, also supporting the police having greater power.

 

This is an absolute affront to the general public, regardless of political or ideological attribute. It goes farther than just alcohol.

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1 hour ago, RUPERTKBD said:

https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/canada/police-in-canada-can-now-demand-breath-samples-in-bars-at-home/ar-BBS2ir9?li=AAggNb9

I suppose the aim is to save lives, but I have to say that I'm not particularly excited about the prospect of police officers having this much discretionary power. Most are good people, but I've met plenty of cops in my day that wouldn't be above abusing it.

 

Case in point: On New Year's Eve, my wife and I drove to a friend's place for a party. The plan was to take a bus or cab home and go pick up the vehicle the next day. If I'm reading this correctly, I would somehow have to prove that I didn't intend to drive home and I could have been arrested, lacking such proof.

I'm sure that will be challenged in court and really means nothing

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17 minutes ago, PhillipBlunt said:

I can see conservatives with a bent for being tough on crime, also supporting the police having greater power.

 

This is an absolute affront to the general public, regardless of political or ideological attribute. It goes farther than just alcohol.

Put fear into the citizens via propaganda, and (almost) any law infringing upon personal rights and freedoms can be implemented.  "Spitting in public transmits horrible, and life debilitating diseases.  The evidence is overwhelming, and cannot be argued."  If this propaganda was promoted by our government, with pictures of disease riddled people, how long before spitting in public becomes a serious crime?  It sounds silly, but ... ?

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18 minutes ago, PhillipBlunt said:

I can see conservatives with a bent for being tough on crime, also supporting the police having greater power.

 

This is an absolute affront to the general public, regardless of political or ideological attribute. It goes farther than just alcohol.

Yeah I can see this having some bipartisan support lol. Scared liberals and conservatives who want to live under a police state. 

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