Nothing wrong with current legislation ...
9/24/2017 at 11:47 PM
| | | JRL said "Take a look at the Health Canada backgrounder https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/news/2017/04/backgrounder_changestoimpaireddrivinglaws.html and you'll see the changes are aimed at closing three loopholes that are used to avoid DUI charges. Of course defence lawyers and drunk drivers don't like the changes. The 'police state' argument is insulting to everyone who actually does live in a country where the police are feared and corrupt. The people who hate drunk drivers but cite a civil liberties argèument... I hope you'll still relish those liberties when it's someone you love that's impacted by a drunk driver. " |
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There is nothing wrong with current legislation. It balances police needs to check for suspected DUIers against the rights of citizens. It's perfectly fine the way it is written. If the police have a legitimate reason to suspect that somebody is impaired, they they have JUST CAUSE to investigate further, and this i:ncludes screening devices to test for impairment. In fact, the screening devices are MANDATORY because a refusal results in an automatic impairment charge. Nothing wrong with that. But in your Utopian world, you seem to think you are going to solve the problem not by going after the people committing the offence, but rather by going after all of the perfectly innocent people living their lives with sobriety, and going about their daily lives as perfect citizens. Why is it that when a completely bureaucratic system fails to administer their programs within the constraints of the law and the constitutional protections afforded to every citizen, that they seek to resolve their own failures by going after the citizens that are responsible and do not drive under the influence? Why is it that you and this proposed system, this bureaucratic government utopia, seems to think it makes it alright to go after everybody else and to violate their security rights and their rights to a life free from government harassment, and to use that to justify their unthoughtful actions. Don't give me some silly argument about one of my family members being hit and injured by someone driving under the influence. Given the very rare chance that that might happen, versus having me live my life in a policed state where any police officer at any point, in any given situation, and for any reason (or without reason) can make a demand that I give them a breath, urine or blood sample just to justify screening out for the small batch of irresponsible citizens who don't respect the law, I would take my Constitutional rights and Charter freedoms - any day!!!
Think of it this way, a few years back the Garden Hill First Nation community was approached by RCMP and made demands of approximately 2,000 males in that community (between a very large age range) to have to give to police a sample of their DNA in order to narrow trying to find a suspect in a murder case. While that strategy may sound great on the outset, don't let it be forgotten that 2,000 innocent men were forced to prove their innocence by having to submit their DNA into a police database. And there are so many possible scenarios where this situation can go completely wrong for these people or their descendants down the road. The Canadian system is one in which a fundamental pillar of the judiciary is one where there is supposed to be a presumption of innocence until proven guilty. In this case, it is incredible that the government was able to create a situation where instead there became a presumption of guilt for every man in that community - 2,000 of them - until each of them would agree to submit to the request and prove themselves innocent. So many unanswered questions to the way this unfolded: What happens to the DNA samples given by members of the community after the samples have been processed? Who keeps that DNA bank? How could that DNA bank be used against these men or their family members by government institutions in the future? What happens to the future generations of unborn children (of those individuals) who gave away their DNA sample to help in this one case, who never had the chance to condone these actions, but who now have a sample of their own DNA in a government police database, which could at any future point be used against them. When somebody gives a DNA sample, it's not just a biological blueprint to their own body makeup, but it is a sample that can be used for any reason down the road, for either themselves or any member of their family (born or unborn) down the road. There is a reason why the current judicial system would never allow the government to unilaterally be permitted to collect and hold biological samples of blood, urine, or DNA for any citizen WITHOUT JUST CAUSE ... and people should be fearful, because these institutions have a proven record of acting inappropriately or even mishandling the information and using it for purposes for which it was never originally intended (when it was collected). What happens when the records are breached, and a private health insurance agency gets a hold of this DNA data and uses your genetic blueprint to try to deny you health coverage, to increase your health premiums, or to limit a claim simply because you agreed to release this to them all the while being innocent of this crime? It's a slippery slope, and it is not wise to allow ANY bureaucratic agency the opportunity to collect your PERSONAL and very private biological data WITHOUT JUST CAUSE!!!
If you want your Utopia, then you should continue with your argument that we should all be forced to submit samples of our DNA into a national data bank, and be forced to have our blood drawn and tested for intoxicants, or our stool tested weekly for evidence of other substances at least twice a day. This strategy, by your logic, would ensure that we are all living perfectly-miserable lives. Unfortunately, some of us are too busy trying to live a good life, that we don't wish to bother with these fantasy, utopic schemes.
The system is perfectly fine the way it is written. If the government cannot administer a solution to the problem (go figure) with their current tool kit, then they will never be able to administer a solution. Don't let these people take your right to life and security, and don't let some random police officer who doesn't understand his own job under the law, to violate your civil or charter rights, or we all lose. It can be already argued that we live in a policed state. Government agencies violate the laws of this land every single day, civil liberties continue to be eroded through actions that have agencies unlawfully spying on citizens in the privacy of their own home without just cause (metadata collection, etc.) and especially without court warrants, and these agencies get away with these constitutional violations with impunity. And at the end of the day, we are no safer than we were before this all started. I am more concerned about privacy in today's society than I ever was growing up, during a time when today's practices would never be accepted. It is indeed a very slippery slope, and it won't take much to slip back into the era of 1930's fascist Germany. George Orwell predicted exactly what is happening today in his novel 1984. Give it a read to understand the type of society you are so willing to give up, for a chance to live in the hell-hole you are proposing!!!
Edited by JoeSixpack, 2017-09-25 00:10:59