Lies the Alberta Government told me.
Have you read or heard something like this from a PC Minister, MLA or PCAA hack recently in defence of the very flawed Bill 26:
We are not lowering the limit to 0.05, this is current law, the new law only changes penalties.
It may make for a nice sound bite but the reality is that every one of these statements are outright lies! There is no place at all in existing (before Bill 26) Alberta law where this mythical 0.05 blood alcohol concentration is actually written. It simply does not exist in any of our laws.
Alberta law as it existed before yesterday: Section 89 of the Alberta Traffic Safety Act reads:
(1) If a peace officer reasonably suspects that the driver of a motor vehicle has consumed alcohol or otherwise introduced into the driver’s body any alcohol, drug or other substance in such a quantity so as to affect the driver’s physical or mental ability, the peace officer may require the driver to surrender the driver’s operator’s licence to the peace officer.
0.05 is not there. It never was there. The reality is that the Redford government is in fact setting the limit and writing 0.05 into the law, and no matter how many times that they claim that they are not changing anything, the facts say otherwise. It would be nice if they would at least drop the lies and admit that they are indeed changing the law, but that would get in the way of their attempts to spin the public and admit that they are lying or that they do not know what our exiting laws say. Either way it does not give me much confidence in these people who claim to represent Albertans.
More examples:
Solicitor General and Minister of Public Security Jonathan Denis: "We are not changing the blood alcohol limits. There already is a .05 legislation if you refer to Section 89 of the Traffic Safety Act"
Justice Minister Verlyn Olson: “This is not being pushed through for political reasons,” Olson said. “We have had a .05 guideline for signs of impairment in Alberta for a long time. That hasn’t changed.
Albertans don't like being lied to.
A quick update: For those that claim blowing a 0.05 on a roadside device is an automatic suspension should really read Section 89 again in particular the following:
5(a) at a place designated by the peace officer, undergoes a test the purpose of which is to show the proportion of alcohol in the driver’s blood, and the result of that test indicates that the proportion of alcohol in the driver’s blood does not exceed 80 milligrams of alcohol in 100 milliliters of blood... the peace officer shall forthwith return the operator’s licence, if any, to the driver and the disqualification from driving is terminated.
In other words if you challenge the roadside finding of 0.05 on a breathalyzer and blow less than 0.08 you get your drivers licence back immediately. Further proving that any statements about current law being 0.05 is nothing more that a lie designed to hide what the government is actually doing.
Thursday, December 08, 2011
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7 comments:
I keep reading about the 1000's of 24 hr suspensions that have been given out and the claim that they all have been for .05. I take it that none were ever given out for drug, sleep or medical impairment or for those less than 0.05 who appeared impaired to the cop at the side of the road.
These clowns have go. If they can pass this there is no telling what they are capable of in the future.
No you are wrong. If a PC Minister said that they were ALL for 0.05 and above it must be the case because when have they ever lied to us. (sarc off)
Last time I checked, it's not people with a blood alcohol level of 0.05 that are out there killing people or themselves.....it's people that are severely, severely intoxicated.
AS well the anger level in me exceeds to an irrational level when I consider the drugs in people's system that will always pass these idiotic tests.
Anony @ 4:39 sums up well, the many other impairments to say nothing of the 'soccer parents' with a rowdy car load of kids........it just goes on and on what this Nanny Premier has choosen to select,is capable of doing and obviously ignores.
Lock us all up!
Simply put they are going after the wrong people with this new law.
Every study out there notes that it is those over .08, in many many cases well over, that are causing the carnage on our roads and while it might not be popular to say I believe this law may actually make things worse as the limited number of police out there are going to be busy chasing those not doing anything illegal while those over .08 drive on by.
Enforcement is the only thing that will work and lowering the limit and creating more targets is not going to make that enforcement task the least bit easier for our already overworked police.
Going after people that drink and drive is the political equivalent of shooting fish in a barrel. Get with the program. You guys are soft on crime. Eat some more granola and sing dipper songs.
True, targeting drunk drivers is normally an easy way for a political party to gain support but you actually have to go after the drunks to get that support; this law doesn't do that and I don't think many Albertans are going buy the line that it does.
AA are you going to volunteer for Wildrose?
They could certainly use someone with your research skills for the upcoming election battle.
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