Private Members’ Business
Criminal Code – Use of Cell Phones While Driving
Wednesday June 19, 2002

    Mr. Bill Blaikie (Winnipeg—Transcona, NDP) moved:

That, in the opinion of the House, the government should consider amending the Criminal Code to make it an offence to drive a motor vehicle while talking on a cell phone, except in circumstances where an emergency situation can be demonstrated.

    He said: Mr. Speaker,my thanks to my seconder, the hon. member for Churchill.

    Every day millions of Canadians get in their cars and drive to work, drive home, drive the kids from one activity to another, drive to do errands, drive to visit relatives and drive all over the country. Every time those individuals get into their cars there are certain expectations of them: that they are of age; that they will have taken a driver's test; that the car is insured and roadworthy; that they will drive safely; and that they are not intoxicated.

    These are all expectations that we have of people when they get behind the wheel of a car and they are all expectations that have been codified in various federal, provincial and territorial regulations. These requirements are all necessary to ensure that our roads are safe and that those individuals who are driving will do so in a way that ensures the safety of others. The overwhelming majority of drivers have no problems with these restrictions and recognize that they are necessary to ensure everyone's safety.

[Translation]

    An area which is not regulated and should be is the use of cell phones while driving. In the last few years, there has been an increase in the number of accidents caused by drivers who were using their cell phone while driving.

    Cell phones are certainly extremely useful, and I personally use one, but we should recognize that their ever more frequent use causes a number of problems. In the last two years, for example, the proceedings of the House and the committees have been more disturbed and interrupted than ever because of cell phones.

    It would seem that people do not know when it is appropriate or not to use these phones. At least, when a conversation is interrupted, our security is not at stake. But when drivers use their cellular phones while driving, risks are greater for their passengers, for other vehicles and for pedestrians, and even for the users of the cell phones themselves.

[English]

    The reports of accidents in which cellphones were involved are becoming more and more frequent. Just a few months ago two couples from Quebec were killed near Washington, D.C. when the car they were driving in was hit by an SUV whose driver was using a cellphone at the time. The driver was also killed in that accident. This is something that is becoming more common everyday and I believe it is something that governments ought to address. It is a growing problem, but there is also a growing awareness that this is a problem that should be dealt with.

    According to a poll conducted by the Traffic Injury Research Foundation three months ago, the majority of drivers, around two-thirds, feel that cellphone use while driving is a serious problem that should be addressed. Half of all the respondents felt that there should be an outright ban on the use of cellphones while driving.

    There clearly exists the recognition that this is a serious problem. I suggest this is true even among those who are in the habit of using their cellphones while driving. I have had a number of people tell me that even though they use their cellphones while driving they would gladly welcome a law to prohibit it so that they might be freed from the temptation of using their phone while driving.

    These opinion polls have been bolstered by a number of studies that have been done over the past few years in which the effects of cellphone use on driving were also examined. These studies found that not only was cellphone use unsafe, it was one of the most unsafe practices that a driver could engage in while driving.

    A study done in Toronto in 1997 found that drivers using a cellphone were four times more likely to be involved in an accident than those who did not. According to another report, issued by the transport research laboratory in Britain three months ago, talking on a cellular phone while driving can slow reaction and stopping times more than the effects of alcohol. Hands free kits for cellular phones were only slightly less dangerous. That is an interesting finding by this particular study because many people argue that all that is required is for the hand held cellphones to be banned and everyone can use the hands free set at much as they like. The study found that reaction times were approximately 30% slower when using a cellphone than when just over the legal blood alcohol limit and 50% slower than when driving normally. Further, drivers had more difficulty maintaining a constant speed and a safe distance from a car in front.

    A number of arguments have been made against these findings but I believe they are all easily refuted. For example, there is the suggestion that using a hands free kit would mean that a telephone conversation would be just as dangerous as having a conversation with someone in a car. However a passenger would have the capacity to notice dangerous situations and put the conversation on hold until the danger passed, not something that someone on the other end of a cellphone link can do. Someone connected by cell would have no way of knowing what the driving conditions facing the driver are.

    The idea of banning cellphone use while driving is not a new idea, although I believe this is the first time it has been debated in this Chamber. I am happy to have been a catalyst in that regard.

    Currently there are more than 30 countries where using a cellphone while driving is illegal. Further, there are numerous countries where similar actions are being considered. I will be interested to see what the government has to say when the parliamentary secretary gets up to respond.

    There are definite benefits to enacting this kind of ban. A Japanese study published in 2001 found that in the two years since 1999 when a ban was imposed the number of phone related accidents was halved.

    There have also been numerous initiatives in Canada related to this kind of ban. Currently, in the Ontario legislature, a private member's bill is being considered that would ban cellphone use while driving. It was introduced in response to a particularly serious accident in Mississauga two years ago.

    Further, the government of Newfoundland and Labrador recently announced that it will ban the use of cellphones while driving, something that has also been done in numerous jurisdictions in the United States.

[Translation]

    The Minister of Justice could tackle this issue in a number of ways. The motion would make it illegal to use a cell phone while driving. I already asked the Minister of Justice to propose this to his provincial and territorial counterparts.

[English]

    While the government of Newfoundland and Labrador is in the process of enacting a ban and other provincial governments are considering this issue, one government that has adamantly refused to consider this request is the Conservative government in Alberta. Members of that government voted against a private members' bill introduced by a Conservative member to introduce a ban. Although initially Premier Klein suggested that the provincial transportation department would do a review of this issue, within two weeks the Alberta government decided that it would not regulate a common sense issue. The rationale was that drivers would have the common sense not to use a cellphone while driving.

    Mr. Speaker, I do not know if you have done any driving lately but a lot of people are not responding to this kind of common sense.

    While I hope that most drivers would have the common sense to not use their cellphone while driving, many clearly do not. This is the same way that most people who drive have the common sense not to drive while intoxicated. There are a small minority who clearly have not learned that lesson.

    The fact is that this small minority who still drive while intoxicated have become a minority. The common sense that we now associate with not driving while intoxicated is a common sense that was instilled over a number of years through changes in the law and through changes in the culture. It did not happen all by itself. It happened in part because the law changed, and of course the law changed because attitudes changed. This process here today is as much about changing attitudes or initiating the debate as it is about changing the law because this is after all a non-votable motion.

    In any event, in the case of drinking and driving, we did choose to regulate this behaviour both through the criminal code and through the various highway traffic acts in all of the provinces. I would like to see a situation in which a similar mechanism exists for the use of cellphones, that the bulk of the regulation be under the rubric of provincial traffic acts with the possibility of a criminal code statute making it illegal to drive while using a cellphone.

    I say the possibility because in the interim, between the time I first tabled this motion and to the time that I am debating it now, there has been a bit of a debate in the country. I have come to the point of view that is why it is non-votable. I chose to make it non-votable. I did not seek to have this motion votable because I did not see any point in having the House divide on this at this particular time.

    For me the key thing was to help push along the debate on this without having it resolved one way or the other. In the final analysis I am not really all that uptight about whether or not it happens provincially or federally, just that it happens.

    We should hold the federal power to amend the criminal code in reserve if in a reasonable amount of time provinces appear unwilling to deal with this in the context of their highway traffic law jurisdictions.

    I say to the government that I would like it very much if it would put on the record its intention or its willingness to use the criminal code power should provincial governments over time not respond to this. I think we are at that point in the debate, particularly with Newfoundland beginning to do this.

    Had there not been this initiative in Newfoundland I may well have decided to have made this votable and tried to force members to vote on this. However I do not think that would have been the best use of the House's time at this point in time in this debate about the use of cellphones while driving.

    Whether it happens federally or provincially, I do not have a constitutional fixation about how this happens but I do think it needs to happen. More and more people are driving and someone whips through the intersection while yakking away on the telephone. This first happened to me when I was in the parking lot in front of my constituency office just after the election in 2000. Someone almost ran right over me in the parking lot. Sure enough, when I looked up, the person in the car was talking on a cellphone and did not even see me because he was so engrossed in the conversation. I said to myself that there ought to be a law. Then I said “Wait a minute, Bill, you're a lawmaker, why don't you put in a private members' bill or a motion to that effect.” That is why this motion is here, because there ought to be a law. Maybe it should be a federal law, maybe it should be a provincial law but there ought to be a law, which is the point I am trying to make here today.