A Quebec coroner says if the province’s penalties for drunk driving have been according to these in the remainder of the nation, a driver who slammed right into a motorcyclist in 2020 wouldn’t have been on the street when the deadly accident occurred.
Coroner Geneviève Thériault says the person who was behind the wheel had been pulled over by Quebec provincial police for driving erratically lower than an hour earlier than the head-on collision on June 4, 2020.
Officers had him blow right into a breathalyzer, which discovered the extent of alcohol in his blood was between 50 and 99 milligrams of alcohol per 100 millimetres of blood, but it surely couldn’t verify whether or not he was above the Legal Code’s authorized restrict of 80 mg per 100 ml of blood.
Provincial police say that leads to the gray zone between 50 and 99 have to be accompanied by different indicators of apparent impairment to make an arrest, and on this case they weren’t ample.
The coroner’s report launched Tuesday mentioned police advised him he may very well be over the authorized restrict and urged him to name a pal or wait a couple of hours earlier than getting again on the street. The cease befell in Grenville, Que., throughout the Ottawa River from Hawkesbury, Ont.

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“For the reason that check consequence didn’t verify that the authorized restrict for driving a motorized vehicle, set at lower than 80 mg/100 ml, was exceeded, the patrol officers knowledgeable the motive force that he may very well be over the authorized restrict and that if he was concerned in an accident he may very well be charged with impaired driving,” Thériault wrote.
“The driving force replied that he would pull over earlier than persevering with on his method.”
Fifty-two minutes later, the crash occurred on a provincial freeway about 50 kilometres from the place he had been stopped, with 64-year-old Bernard D’Aragon, an skilled motorcyclist, killed on influence.
Each autos have been travelling about 90 kilometres per hour. The driving force was discovered responsible of harmful driving inflicting loss of life.
Quebec is the one province that has not gone farther than the Legal Code and established a authorized alcohol restrict of fifty mg per 100 ml of blood or decrease — after which drivers can have their licences revoked or face different sanctions. In Saskatchewan, the provincial restrict is 40 mg per 100 ml of blood.
“Quebec is now remoted on the difficulty of administrative sanctions, as it seems that all provinces and territories in Canada have adopted such sanctions to scale back the variety of deaths and accidents associated to impaired driving,” Thériault wrote.
“If administrative sanctions similar to these present elsewhere within the nation had been in impact in Quebec in 2020, the police may have instantly suspended the motive force’s licence and seized the car in the course of the cease, which might have prevented the accident.”
Among the many coroner’s suggestions for the province’s car insurance coverage board and the Transport Division is to amend the province’s Freeway Security Code to make sure administrative penalties are imposed on drivers with a blood-alcohol focus of fifty mg per 100 ml or greater.
It’s the second time Thériault has known as on Quebec to decrease its restrict, and different coroners issued comparable suggestions in 2023. The Coalition Avenir Québec authorities has steadfastly refused to decrease the restrict.
“It’s important to behave early to guard human life, and I consider we should act with out additional delay,” she wrote.
© 2025 The Canadian Press
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