Listen to this article
Estimated 3 minutes
The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology. Mispronunciations can occur. We are working with our partners to continually review and improve the results.
Officers will begin exercising additional powers to breathalyze drivers at traffic stops without needing reasonable suspicion of impairment on Jan. 1, the Saskatoon Police Service says .
The move by SPS aligns with other police services across Saskatchewan, including the RCMP and Regina Police Service, which already mandate breath testing during traffic enforcement.
The authority comes from 2018 changes to the Criminal Code that allow police to demand a breath sample from any driver lawfully stopped, without first forming suspicion that alcohol has been consumed.
“What it does is that we don’t have to rely on suspicion and have to build suspicion,” Sgt. Raymond Robertson, impaired co-ordinator for the SPS, said in an interview.
“As long as we’re at a lawful traffic stop and the instrument is in our possession, then we can read the mandatory alcohol screening demand and then they’re required to provide that sample,” he said.
The change does not mean drivers will be randomly stopped just to be breath-tested, Robertson says..
“It has to be lawful, being that, obviously, we observe a traffic offence, whether that be running a stop sign, a red light or speeding,” he said.
What does it mean for drivers?
Criminal defence lawyer Linh Pham who regularly handles impaired-driving cases says the key change is that police no longer need reasonable suspicion before making a roadside breath-test demand.
Officers can still rely on reasonable suspicion to demand a breath sample, but since the law allows mandatory screening without having to point to any signs of impairment, why would they?
“Is this an erosion of Charter rights? I would say it is because it allows them to request a breathalyzer sample without any evidence that there was wrongdoing,” Pham said.
Pham says he considers a breath sample as a search under the Charter, raising questions about the balance between public safety and individual rights.
“A breath sample is a search of your body to determine how much alcohol is in your bloodstream,” he said. “That’s why there continues to be legal debate around this power.”
Pham says timing matters. While police do not need suspicion to make a mandatory demand, the law still sets strict limits on how and when that demand can be made, Pham says.
If an officer speaks with a driver, walks away for awhile, and then comes back minutes later to make the demand, that can make it unconstitutional.
Pham says he regularly challenges impaired-driving cases on those timing requirements, and that courts have thrown out cases when demands were not made immediately or could not be complied with right away.
Refusing a valid demand can result in criminal charges, he says, even if a driver believes they are asserting their rights.
Pham says he has noticed police using mandatory screening more frequently in recent years, including in Regina and during RCMP traffic stops.
“It’s leading to more charges,” he said, “but not necessarily more convictions, because the Charter battlegrounds are still there.”