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Federal Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould set off a tempest in a shot-glass this week by suggesting Canada lower the blood-alcohol-content standard for impaired driving.

From restaurant industry howls that the change would kill business to radio shock-jocks complaining it will clog up courts, you could be forgiven for forgetting B.C. has enforced the proposed standard since 2010.

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The sky hasn’t fallen.

Restaurants and bars are still in business, taxi drivers are happy, hundreds of lives have apparently been saved and thousands of drunk-driving cases have been moved out of court, helping clear dockets.

The minister trigged this summer storm by writing to her Quebec counterpart about lowering the blood alcohol content (BAC) threshold in the Criminal Code to 50 milligrams of alcohol per 100 millilitres of blood from the current limit of 80 milligrams.

This would add to sweeping changes Ottawa introduced earlier this year that include mandatory roadside breath samples and much harsher penalties for some offences of up to 10 years in prison.