Impaired Driving Being Decriminalized in Alberta

January 15, 2018, Kitchener, Ontario

Posted by: Robert Deutschmann, Personal Injury Lawyer

Alberta has taken a bold move in giving police the authority to exercise wide discretion in whether to lay criminal charges in drunk driving cases. By and large Alberta will have decriminalized drunk driving altogether by the end of the year, even removing mandatory roadside sanctions in impaired driving cases. What may be even more shocking to many, is that MADD Alberta supports the moves. It is modelled after the BC model that focusses on fines, roadside towing and licence suspensions rather than on criminal charges.

These changes are a direct result of the Alberta Court of Appeal decision in May 2017 that struck down Alberta’s existing drunk driving laws. The Court ruled that tying the suspension of a driver licence to the result of a court case is unconstitutional. They Court gave the Province twelve months to introduce new legislation.

The new legislation means that there will be big changes in how drunk drivers are policed and prosecuted. It is expected that the province will largely de-criminalize the offence in the coming year. It is expected that officers will determine whether an impaired driver should be criminally charged. Rather than laying criminal charges officers will be administering road side sanctions to most first-time offenders instead.

Under the new legislation, drivers with BAC over the legal limit will face a three-month licence suspension immediately. They will have to join the driver interlock program for a 12-month period after that in order to get their licence back. If they chose not to then they will have their licence suspended for another twelve months.

Defence attorneys argue that this is a violation of process as it does not respect the presumption of innocence before penalizing the driver, essentially allowing police to become judge and jury.

MADD feels that these moves will free up court time allowing prosecutors to deal with the more serious impaired cases. They are hopeful that the total number of impaired cases will fall. MADD argues that the administrative sanctions will hit drivers hard in the pocket book, and that the sanctions will be a strong deterrent.

Alberta has remained mum about the further changes to the legislation that are coming. It will be interesting to see whether the impaired driving laws in Ontario will also be challenged, and to observe whether the changes to Alberta and British Columbia legislation have an impact on the rate of impaired driving and accidents and deaths.

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Deutschmann Law serves South-Western Ontario with offices in Kitchener-Waterloo, Cambridge, Woodstock, Brantford, Stratford and Ayr. The law practice of Robert Deutschmann focuses almost exclusively in personal injury and disability insurance matters. For more information, please visit www.deutschmannlaw.com or call us at 1-519-742-7774.

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