Impaired Driving Laws
Department of Justice June 21, 2018
On April 13, 2017, the Government of Canada introduced Bill C-46, the most comprehensive reform to the Criminal Code transportation regime in more than 40 years. The Bill passed Parliament on June 20, 2018 and received Royal Assent on June 21, 2018. The new law is a modern, simplified, and more coherent system of reforms to better deter and detect drug and alcohol-impaired driving.
The elements of the legislation related to drug-impaired driving came into force on Royal Assent, June 21, 2018. The legislation authorizes police to use additional tools, such as roadside oral fluid drug screeners, enacts new driving offences of being over a prohibited blood drug concentration, and allows for blood samples to be collected without first requiring a driver to undergo a drug recognition evaluation. It also gives authority for the Governor in Council to make regulations setting the levels for various impairing drugs and these regulations came into force on June 26, 2018.
Click here for more info on Bill C-46 (which has received Royal Assent as of June 2018).