Brihard said:
The legal/justice system is in a constant state of self-correction over exactly these sorts of problems. We’ve got close to 70,000 police in Canada, with easily tens of millions of interactions with Canadians in a given year. In every such interaction a lot of things can potentially happen. So yes, between error, poor judgement, and very occasionally outright malice on someone’s part, things will go wrong. In that regard these new laws are really no different from just about anything else. The same arguments were made in key Supreme Court cases on things like investigative detention, or random traffic stops. It’s the reality inherent in a system governed by the rule of law where one group has to try to enforce same, and others will go to sometimes absurd lengths to get away with whatever it is they’ve done. There’s a lot of murkiness in that ground in between.
That is not me accepting any individual thing done wrong- it should always be seen as something to fix. But it’s unrealistic to expect that perfection is achievable, or that having perfection as a goal should prevent efforts to improve a badly flawed system.
Unlike some others I’m not one of those cops who craps on the Charter. I think it’s key to our society’s functioning, and its protections matter. I’m cognizant of and sympathetic to the liberty concerns here. But I’m also irritated at seeing an actual situation seriously misrepresented by people grinding an axe.
But there's a better way, a way with less risks to innocent bystanders that achieves the same effect of this law. So there's no need to sit here and agree with the legislation. We can say "I agree with the intent of the legislation, but I do not agree with it in its current form." That doesn't make me someone with an axe to grind, it makes me someone who expects legislators to do a better job. The better way is by targeting actual obstruction, which would mean you'd have to be investigating someone for obstruction, instead of broadening the definition a DUI so that it opens up essentially everyone to being investigated and charged for DUI, just so you can catch the few who have committed obstruction.
Like seriously, what is wrong with this alternative (forgive me for shotty legal speak... I'm sure a lawyer would clean it up):
"Obstructing justice
139. (3) Every one who willfully consumes alcohol or drugs within two hours of a motor vehicle accident, collision, incident, or (weird legaleeze speak for things that can go wrong in a car when you a drunk) and therefore ought to have had reasonable expectation that they would be required to provide a sample of a bodily substance
AND
is found to have a blood alcohol concentration and a blood drug concentration that is equal to or exceeds the blood alcohol concentration and the blood drug concentration for the drug that are prescribed by regulation for instances where alcohol and that drug are combined.
is guilty of..." and then subject to sentencing that is specifically designed for people who obstruct DUI investigations, which would essentially be the same sentencing for a DUI.
Please tell me the issue with this kind of approach to hypothetical legislation? Where does it fall short in closing loopholes that this current law does not fall short?
Because I'll tell you where it's better... an anonymous caller calling and saying you were driving erratically wouldn't give the police the ability to charge you with a DUI because you were drunk by your pool on a Sunday.
Surely there is a better way.
