Refuse a breath test? What Ontario drivers should know under new police mandate
Highways throughout southern Ontario will be busy this Victoria Day long weekend as residents mark the unofficial start to summer.
With what is traditionally a busy time on the roads, police throughout the region will be keeping an eye out for impaired drivers.
If travelling through the Greater Toronto Area, drivers should know that the Ontario Provincial Police recently announced a new policy aimed at combating impaired driving.
The OPP announced that it will be demanding a breath sample any time its officers conduct a traffic stop on an OPP-patrolled highway in the Greater Toronto Area.
The service said it is using the full extent of Canada’s Mandatory Alcohol Screening (MAS), which was amended in 2018 to allow police to demand a breath test of any driver even in the absence of suspicion.
OPP Sgt. Kerry Schmidt said breath samples to check for alcohol will be required even if drivers are pulled over for speeding, using a cellphone or other offences.
The new measure is aimed at combating an increase in impaired driving offences that has been observed over the past several years, Schmidt said.
In short, unless you want to be criminally charged, no.
“If you refuse, you’ll be arrested and charged,” Schmidt said.
Michael Engel, a defence lawyer who practices exclusively in impaired driving cases, said if a driver refuses to provide a breath sample, the consequences can be extensive.
“It’s as if you committed a full-blown offence of driving under the influence,” Engel told Global News.
“The fact of the refusal is criminalized and it carries with it the same penalties as if you had taken the test, failed that test, been taken to the station and failed another breathalyzer test.”
Engel said he currently has a couple of ongoing
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