Thank you very much. Good afternoon. My name is Jeff Walker. I'm the chief strategy officer at CAA.

Let me begin by thanking the members of the standing committee for inviting the CAA to join you today to provide our views on Bill C-46. Our focus of discussion is going to be on the drug-impaired driving aspects of Bill C-46.

The CAA was founded in 1913 as a consumer advocacy organization. We have 6.2 million members in Canada today, and since our inception, we've been advocating for critical pieces of the traffic and road safety network that are currently in place today—everything from stop signs, which were put in place in the early 1900s, to seatbelts and airbags. You name it, and we've been involved all the way along, and we continue to be committed to this aspect of safety in Canada. We represent, roughly, one in four adult drivers in Canada, and we're recognized as one of the most trusted brands in the country.

Although drugs and driving has long been a public policy issue in road safety, only recently has this issue become a major concern to Canadians in light of the government's plan to legalize cannabis. In some of our polling across the country, seven in 10 Canadians have told us that they are concerned about their safety on the roads with the coming legalization of marijuana. Public education about the danger of driving under the influence of cannabis is, and will continue to be, a significant area of focus for us and many other stakeholders in the years to come.

The Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction has reported that, in stark contrast to alcohol-impaired driving, the number of drug-impaired incidents has been rising since 2009. As alluded to by Markita, if you look at Washington and Colorado, it's the same pattern. There is no reason to assume this trend will reverse. What we need to do is minimize it.

CAA is pleased to see that with Bill C-46 the government is committed to creating new and stronger laws to deter Canadians from driving while under the influence of drugs.

The introduction of roadside oral fluid screeners and ensuring that drug evaluating officers providing testimony do not need to be qualified through an expert witness hearing are positive steps forward. These new tools will help police to better detect drug-impaired drivers and ensure that they will face the justice system.

The legislation also creates three new offences for having specified levels of drug in the blood and sets these levels for cannabis. Based on the available scientific evidence, we think that these levels are reasonable for now, but we believe that one of the major things that needs to be done is more investment in scientific research around this question. There are major gaps in the science right now.

As with drinking and driving, driving under the influence of cannabis affects not just those individuals who partake but potentially all road users. Alarmingly, while few Canadians would argue that they are better drivers after drinking alcohol, a significant number of Canadian young people actually believe that driving after smoking marijuana makes them safer and more focused drivers. This is real. I've been there. I've watched the focus groups. It's a problem. For this reason, CAA was pleased to see the McLellan task force report confirm that work must be done urgently to address these misconceptions. Several issues have to be tackled immediately: public education, better funding for law enforcement, more research on science and technology to detect impairment, and the impairing effects of cannabis.

Bill C-46 deals with the law on cannabis quite thoroughly, but it leaves unanswered some key questions such as funding for law enforcement, research, and public awareness. The legislation is a positive step, but it's only the first step. Last week, the federal government announced new funding amounting to $161 million to support Bill C-46. That funding is to be used for law enforcement, bolstering research, and raising public awareness. We're very happy that this announcement was made, but I want to flag something. Half of that money is going to be spread over five years, and if you break it out across the 13 jurisdictions in the country, you're talking about $11.5 million for each of them. That's not a ton of money. Maybe that helps with the science, but if we're talking about public education, there's still a way to go.

We know from our experience with alcohol and other driving campaigns that public education plays a significant role in reducing the amount of impaired driving. A major public education effort is going to be required to make Canadians, particularly young Canadians, understand that driving under the influence of cannabis is likely to impair their ability to control their vehicle.

As I alluded to earlier, our recent polling says that 20% of Canadians age 18 to 34 believe they are the same or better behind the wheel after consuming cannabis. This is not the only misconception about the impairing effects of cannabis. We and other non-profit groups in this country have been left to carry the burden of creating and executing public education campaigns on our own. We're going to continue to do our part, but we want help.

Additionally, the government will need to continue to support the law enforcement community to ensure it has the resources necessary to develop the tools, detection devices, and access to training that it will require into the future.

In conclusion, the CAA, without reservation, supports measures that make Canada's roads safer, and we believe that Bill C-46 is a good step in the right direction. However, to combat drug-impaired driving, three key elements—meaningful legislation, public awareness, and effective enforcement and measurement—all need to be taken care of. If we get all three right, we're going to be in a good place. We need to do it, and we need to do it right.

Provinces, law enforcement, and stakeholders will do their part and the tax revenues that people talk about as coming from this may eventually provide the kind of funding that we need, so it becomes a self-funding thing to be able to take care of these things, but in the near term we need a real down payment to be able to get this right from the beginning.

We cannot wait for legislation to begin this important work that we all have in front of us. It's important and needs to come soon. Again, to your point from earlier, we have a lot of people already consuming cannabis and driving today and there's nothing, so getting this done soon is really important.

Thank you very much.

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