Kevin Laliberte
Editor, Smoky River Express

Beginning July 1 of this year drivers who are convicted of having twice the legal limit or higher of alcohol in their bloodstream will be required to attach alcohol sensors to their vehicle ignitions before they are allowed to drive again. The Mandatory Ignition Interlock Program applies to drivers convicted of drinking and driving with a blood-alcohol reading of double the legal limit of .08/80 milligrams per cent or higher, as well as those who refused to provide a breath or blood sample, or were repeat offenders over the past 10 years. After serving the court-ordered suspension, convicted drivers must apply to the Alberta Transportation Safety Board to have an ignition interlock installed in the vehicle they will be driving. Their driver’s licence will not be reissued until they have the mechanism installed, at their own expense. The ignition interlock is an alcohol-sensing device attached to a vehicle’s ignition system. If it detects a pre-set level of alcohol, the driver will not be able to start or drive the vehicle. The device also calls for random breath samples while the vehicle is being driven. If the driver does not provide a “pass” sample within a certain time frame, the vehicle’s horn is activated. At least once every 60 days, participants must bring their vehicles to the installer who inspects the equipment. The installer transfers the recorded information, which includes all “pass”, “fail”, and “warning” attempts, to the Alberta Transportation Safety Board. Reinstatement of unrestricted driving privileges at the end of the suspension period depends on the participant’s performance in the program. Monitoring lasts for at least six months, during which there is a zero-tolerance policy. Participants pay for all costs such as application fees, installation and monthly rental of the interlock devices, registration costs for mandatory impaired-driving courses and fees for conditional driver’s licences. The interlock device remains on the vehicle until the licence suspension period is over, or longer, at the discretion of the Alberta Transportation Safety Board, based on the participant’s performance on the program. Canada’s Liberal Leader Stephane Dion is proposing a $15-billion-a-year tax shift that would hike the cost of burning fossil fuels while lowering income taxes and boosting family support payments. Dion unveiled the controversial and long-awaited plan at a boisterous partisan rally on Parliament Hill, where Liberal MPs wore green baseball hats labelled ‘The Green Shift.’ Dion called the plan ‘as powerful as it is simple.’ The concept has been ridiculed for weeks by the governing Conservatives, who mocked talk of a ‘revenue neutral' tax shift as simple trickery. The Liberal plan would initially peg the price of greenhouse gas emissions at $10 per tonne, rising to $40 per tonne in the fourth year. At that point, the tax would be boosting federal revenues by about $15 billion annually. Dion says that tax hike would be offset by income-tax cuts to lower-income Canadians, boosts in the child tax credit and a one per cent cut in corporate and small-business tax rates.

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