Random Breath Testing Violates Charter Rights

The federal Justice Department is proposing that Random Breath Testing (RBT) be conducted without reasonable cause and this constitutes unreasonable search – a violation of the Charter of Rights.

Their rationale is that since Australia, New Zealand, and the European states violate their citizen’s right to privacy by conducting RBT, we should also do so in Canada!

The report suggests that relying on the judgement of police is a weakness in the current system of detecting drunk drivers.  However, if we cannot rely on the good judgement of police today, will we abandon jury trials tomorrow because we cannot rely on the good judgement of jurors?  What about the reliance on the good judgement of judges? 

In fact our entire legal system rests on good judgement of authorities plus Charter Rights – and that is a good thing.

Furthermore, their proposal does not meet the burden of proof that there is an overriding reason to violate our Charter right.  The annex of the report fails to present evidence that suggests that

(a) a system of random checks is more effective than a combination of other measures such as a lower threshold for blood alcohol level and more frequent RIDE checkpoints.

(b) random breath tests will be a deterrent to drunk drivers.  Higher fines for a first offence and stiffer penalties for subsequent offences would be more likely to provide an effective deterrent.  To quote an old saying, “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure”.

A greater concern is the current trend in the Canadian Government to violate our right to protection from unreasonable search in the name of public safety.  First the airports, now our cars, what is next – our homes?

The “logic” that the innocent have nothing to fear from such searches rests on the presumption that there is never a miscarriage of justice by the authorities.  If we remove Charter protection, then we have only the good judgement of the authorities to rely on.  History tells us that by itself this is not enough. 

Just ask Maher Arar.

Random Breath Testing Violates Charter Rights