Canada considers random breathalyzers and the NDP throw their support behind it.

The federal justice minister is considering a new law that would allow police to conduct random breathalyzer tests on drivers, regardless of whether they suspect motorists have been drinking.

Well isn't that so perfect. I bet the loons over at M.A.D.D are high fiving each other like crazy over this announcement.

Follow up:

The change would also bring Canada in line with a number of other countries in Europe and countries like Australia, which have adopted similar measures.

This is Canada, yes? So wtf do these countries have to do with us? Do those countries have the same education in place to teach people about drinking and driving? China shoots political prisoners, are we to expect that here to? I know I know, apples and hand grenades, two different things but I just love when Canada makes decisions based on how other countries do things.

Murie said its biggest selling point is that it improves road safety, with drunk driving fatalities dropping 36 per cent in Australia after legislation was introduced, and 23 per cent in Ireland when it made the change.

Correlation does not equal causation and one must wonder if there were any other factors also influencing these numbers.

In the European Union, they demand that their countries, as part of membership for road safety, have sophisticated random breath testing because of the difference it's made in lives saved.

Again, this is Canada, not Europe

Murie said the change would allow police at roadblocks to conduct about three times as many breathalyzer tests because they would not need to spend time determining whether there is "reasonable" suspicion a driver has been drinking.

The key word there is "reasonable" so lets just throw that out the window because being "reasonable" is a waste of time. It saves time and makes it much easier to treat everyone like a criminal, kind of like the US, only with a Canadian spin. Police already have the resources to determine if someone is driving drunk or whatever and to sugar coat it like this is stupid.

The issue for civil libertarians, however, is that changing the law to allow random testing would be a violation of a person's right to protection against unreasonable search and seizure.

But, BUT, the Charter has a way around this, kind of like how R.I.D.E checkpoints are "legal". There's always a but.

"It remains to be seen what the actual legislation is when the minister brings it forward because we want to make sure that it's appropriately constrained and it's not too much of an infringement on civil liberties," Dosanjh told CBC News.

Dosanjh said the charter does allow for constraints on rights when they are deemed reasonable, but said he would need to see how those constraints are implemented before judging any future legislation.

Not too much of an infringement. Just a little, but not a lot in other words. What a joke.

But Dosanjh pointed out that driving is not a right itself, but rather a privilege subject to licences given by government authorities.

Thank you daddy

All in all this effort is poorly thought out. First, as I've said before in similar topics, I don't think that drunk driving is cool or that drunk drivers should be dealt with leniently. However, "randomly" testing people reeks of abuse. Firstly, no matter how much they may think that it will not be used against targeted groups, ie racial profiling, we all know better. Second, by being stopped without probable cause or whatnot and giving a breath sample, you have also now given a DNA sample. I don't know what is required in Canadian law when it comes to giving the police DNA samples but it seems to me that they would now, in effect, be able to circumvent those procedures because you just gave them one. To me, this seems way to open for abuse.

And the old adage "if you have nothing to hide, then there is nothing to worry about" doesn't compute and smells of the stasi.

Most important of all is where does it end? If doing random home checks was to save just 1 life,or that it somehow reduced drug use by say 48% would Canadians agree to it? What about random frisking of people walking down the street because it lowered gun crime 13%? To most people, they don't care about shit like that as long as they feel safe.

Here's a thought, instead of coming up with insipid laws that harass the general public, how about actually handing out real punishments for those that actually do commit these offences. So what will this new law be, another catch and release program. Pure horse shit.

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