Juno News - New drunk driving laws don't increase safety. They just reduce rights.

00:00:00.000 if you've had a few drinks less than two hours after driving you can be charged this is one of

00:00:09.000 the most bizarre takeaways from the new drinking and driving legislation across Canada that just

00:00:13.800 went into effect where if you were behind the wheel of a car and then you went into a bar and

00:00:18.960 had a few drinks or even if you went to your own home and got drunk police could demand a breath

00:00:24.060 test and charge you if you blow over or charge you if you refuse to comply in your own home when

00:00:30.320 you're there for the night your car is parked and you haven't been driving for an hour and a half

00:00:34.660 this is meant to take away the ability for people to claim that they got drunk after they were driving

00:00:41.220 and actually weren't driving drunk but what this legislation truly does is open the door to a whole

00:00:48.160 bunch of overzealousness that police are able to employ and what's worse is that despite the

00:00:54.240 protestations of the Ontario Criminal Lawyers Association pretty much every constitutional

00:00:59.580 lawyer imaginable civil liberties groups all of whom say that this will cause people to

00:01:04.660 have limited rights in their own homes and to have to prove their own innocence

00:01:09.380 police are still saying oh no no just trust us now don't get me wrong I'm very pro-police generally

00:01:16.400 they have a job to do unfortunately police are very fond of the freedom and power this gives them

00:01:22.300 and the latitude this gives them even if civil liberties take a hit under it so for example

00:01:27.400 when an Edmonton police spokesperson says no no they're only going to go and demand a breath test

00:01:32.460 if they have reasonable suspicion that's truly the opposite of what the legislation says police used to

00:01:39.340 require reasonable suspicion which is already a lower threshold than probable cause now that suspicion

00:01:45.620 is gone they can just on a whim decide they want to subject you to a breath test the problem with

00:01:51.240 this is that it allows police to go on a fishing expedition for people who have done nothing wrong

00:01:56.360 to basically allow police to try to find something you might have done wrong even in this case there's

00:02:03.020 nothing morally nor should there be anything legally wrong with having a few drinks at home when

00:02:08.660 you have no intention of driving again a lot of the people who have defended this legislation say

00:02:13.960 that age-old trope if you've got nothing to hide you don't need to worry or well if you're not drinking

00:02:19.660 and driving you don't need to worry the problem with laws that erode civil liberties is that they

00:02:24.640 push everyone into a position where they have to defend themselves and prove their innocence and that's

00:02:30.320 precisely what's contained in this legislation if police charge you with blowing over because you were

00:02:35.020 in your home and you drove less than two hours ago you have to prove that you were not drunk how do you

00:02:40.880 prove a negative how do you prove that you were not drunk when you were driving behind the wheel

00:02:45.140 but you got drunk or at least mildly intoxicated after the fact now don't get me wrong everyone

00:02:51.160 predicts that this legislation will be ruled unconstitutional but it'll take years countless

00:02:56.680 amounts of money government having to fight a long drawn out battle for this to get all the way up to

00:03:01.560 the supreme court before we get that definitive ruling the much better approach would be if the people

00:03:07.040 responsible for drafting this legislation wouldn't put something that has no respect for civil liberties

00:03:12.500 in front of parliament in the first place and if parliament wouldn't adopt these things but again the

00:03:19.080 government stands by it mad which is an activist group is standing by it and police are standing by it

00:03:24.520 but that's because it gives government power over you and i for true north i'm andrew lutton

00:03:30.560 you

Juno News - January 20, 2019