23 years ago, a little boy was killed in front of his mother by a drunk driver and the Quebec government promised to toughen its laws so that this type of tragedy would no longer happen, or at least, much less often.
“It’s alarming, what we’re experiencing, and I hope that society will understand the message,” said the PQ Minister of Transport at the time, Guy Chevrette, committing in particular to raising the limit of alcohol allowed in the blood of motorists from 0.08 to 0.05.
Quebec society has perfectly understood the message, thank you very much. For 23 years, it is rather the politicians who govern it who have turned a deaf ear.
As my colleague Vincent Larin reported on Friday1the PQ government ended up backtracking. After him, it was the Liberal government that backed down — twice rather than once. Today, the CAQ government no longer even dares to try. While the debate resurfaces in the National Assembly, he plays innocent while waiting for it to pass.
He seems convinced that it is more politically profitable to let people drive a little hot, after an evening at a restaurant, than to save lives.
Since Wednesday, we have been able to quantify the number of lives lost in Quebec due to this deeply cynical political calculation.
That day, a notice from the Société de l’assurance automobile du Québec (SAAQ) was made public, a week after having been almost entirely redacted, as if to hide the extent of the government’s hypocrisy in this matter.
As if the government had not wanted us to know, as the SAAQ opinion concludes, that lowering the blood alcohol limit while driving to 0.05 would save up to nine lives each year.
Nine lives. Every year. Do the math: if the government had stayed the course 23 years ago, up to 207 lives would have since been spared in Quebec. We could have prevented 230 people from being seriously injured. And the public treasury would have saved $69 million in compensation costs.
PHOTO MARCO CAMPANOZZI, LA PRESSE ARCHIVES
If the Quebec government had introduced the alcohol limit at 0.05 in 2001, up to 207 lives would have been saved.
Successive governments cannot plead ignorance. The scientific literature is unequivocal: lowering the limit to 0.05 would save lives, every year, on our roads. The National Institute of Public Health of Quebec has supported it since 2010. The Quebec Road Safety Table has said the same thing since 2009.
This time, the SAAQ is demonstrating it again, just like an investigation by the Duty2which got the ball rolling at the start of the week. But that hardly interests the Minister of Transport, Geneviève Guilbault – even if she herself affirmed, last year, that “the only acceptable number of deaths or injuries is zero”.
For days, Mme Guilbault repeats the same tape: the government is already doing a lot to improve the road record. When asked if it could not do more, she replied that the government is already doing a lot to improve the road safety record. When asked why Quebec is the only province not to limit blood alcohol content to 0.05, she replies that the government is already doing a lot to…
PHOTO EDOUARD PLANTE-FRÉCHETTE, LA PRESSE ARCHIVES
The Minister of Transport and Sustainable Mobility, Geneviève Guilbault, last Wednesday
No one will succeed in making him admit this obvious fact: if Quebec refuses to implement a measure that could save up to nine lives per year, it is because it fears the anger of restaurateurs and voters in the region. This is all that can explain the hesitation of this government and those that preceded it for (at least) 23 years.
When Quebec banned cigarettes from bars and restaurants in 2006, the apocalypse was predicted. The economic consequences would be disastrous, customers would stay at home, there would be chain bankruptcies.
The apocalypse did not happen. Customers have adapted. They continued to go out — and were even happy to no longer reek of tobacco at the end of the evening.
It would be no different if Quebec tightened the rules on drunk driving.
Customers would adapt, as they have adapted in other provinces. Restaurateurs would also adapt, as in Scotland, where a study cited in the SAAQ opinion (and carefully redacted until Wednesday) showed that the “slight loss of income in alcohol sales has probably been compensated, at least in part, through the sale of non-alcoholic products and food.”
In short, it wouldn’t be the end of the world. Quebecers are no more stupid than the others, they would adapt too. Even France, an eternal lover of wine, has set the permitted limit at 0.05. I would like to believe that Quebec is a distinct society, but at this point…
It is true that in the region, it can be difficult – and that is an understatement – to use public transport after going out to a restaurant. But that doesn’t mean that regional residents are overwhelmingly opposed to the idea of raising the limit to 0.05.
On the contrary, 57% of them are in favor of the measure. In the Montreal region, the support rate climbs to 66% while in the Quebec region, it is at 50%, according to a SOM-Les Coops de l’information survey conducted last year3.
Across the province, therefore, 61% of Quebecers want the government to finally listen to science and take action. Social acceptability is there, well anchored. There are no more votes to lose, only lives to save.
1. Read the article “Lowering the alcohol limit to 0.05: the multiple back and forths from Quebec”
2. Read the survey Duty “Quebec ignores expert opinions on drunk driving”
3. Read the article from Right “Quebecers want the blood alcohol level to be lowered to 0.05”