Experts and activists are swimming in incomprehension at the government’s inaction when a majority of Quebecers would like the alcohol driving limit to be reduced to 0.05 and all the research points in this direction.
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“I don’t know what to tell you,” sighs Antoine Bittar, about the position of the Legault government advocating the status quo.
As director of MADD Montreal, which fights against impaired driving, his voice joins that of numerous civil or scientific groups who are calling for a reduction in the blood alcohol level limit from 0.08 to 0.05.
Transport Minister Geneviève Guilbault said she did not intend to acquiesce, even though she has just tabled a bill on road safety.
However, this is what the National Institute of Public Health (INSPQ) has been recommending since 2010. This is also what coroner Yvon Garneau requested this fall, as well as the Association for Public Health of Quebec (ASPQ). and CAA-Quebec this week.
Support increasing
However, Minister Guilbault’s position is all the more difficult to understand since several surveys have shown that such a lowering of the limit would have the support of a majority of the population, note the speakers.
In March 2022, a Léger survey carried out for the ASPQ noted that 50% of Quebecers would be in favor. By March 2023, the support rate in the same poll had increased to 57%.
- Listen to the interview with Antoine Bittar and Élizabeth Rivera, a couple of parents grieving the loss of a child who died in a road accident involving an intoxicated driver, via QUB :
A SOM poll carried out for Les coops de l’information carried out last fall even reached a support rate of 61%, according to The right.
Already in 2020, the INSPQ came to the conclusion that 70% of Quebecers consider that penalties related to drunk driving should be more severe.
“Wrong Way”
“I ask them [au gouvernement] to give me just one argument,” says Monsef Derraji, a liberal MP who submitted a petition on the subject on the National Assembly website.
“If we base it on science, the CAQ is on the wrong track. If we base ourselves on the coroner’s opinion, the CAQ is on the wrong track. Based on popular opinion […] the CAQ is on the wrong track,” he summarizes.
Quebec is the last Canadian province to maintain its limit at 80 mg of alcohol per 100 mL of blood (0.08), while all the others have already reduced it to 0.05, or even 0.04.
“Eloquent” data
“The data speaks for itself,” says Nicolas Ryan of CAA-Quebec. For example, British Columbia has seen an impressive drop in the number of deaths related to drunk driving since 2019, he illustrates.
“We have reached a moment where we can no longer accept deaths that are avoidable,” says Antoine Bittar.
Jessica Sarli-Rivera, who died in a vehicle driven by an intoxicated person, in 2017.
photo from the family album
Mr. Bittar and his wife, Elizabeth Rivera, have caused a lot of ink to flow despite themselves in recent days. They revealed that they had been invited to pay $200 in order to have access to Minister Guilbault during a fundraising cocktail.
In 2017, they lost their daughter Jessica. She died in an accident after getting into an acquaintance’s car. The driver was drunk, but did not appear intoxicated, Mr. Bittar said.
Jessica was 26 years old. She would be 32 today.