Impaired driving rates are at an all-time low — but MADD Canada warns that increasing access to beer and wine in the province could change that.

At a press conference with Liberal Leader Kathleen Wynne, Andrew Murie — who heads the national anti-drinking and driving group — said “every time a government loosens the rules, we pay it in human costs.”

Wynne spoke of the slow change her government brought in after announcing in 2015 that grocery stores would carry beer and wine.

“We have developed safe and responsible plans — whether it is broadening the availability of alcohol in grocery stores ... or whether in new changes we are going to be making in light of the federal changes in the legalization of cannabis,” she told reporters at the event at Addictions and Mental Health Ontario in downtown Toronto.

“... They are big culture shifts and where we have to find balance.”

PC Leader Doug Ford has said if elected, his party would allow alcohol sales in convenience stores.

NDP Leader Andrea Horwath has said the current system is socially responsible and works well.

The latest statistics on drinking and driving indicate that while alcohol-impaired driving is on the wane, driving while under the influence of drugs or a drug-alcohol combination remains a huge concern, Murie said.

MADD’s report is based on fatal car crash deaths in 2014, and it says the numbers are “significantly” understated as definitions of impairment vary and police also “frequently fail to detect or report the presence of alcohol in crashes in which they are unable to obtain the driver’s” blood-alcohol content.

Across Canada, the total number of crash deaths involving alcohol is 13 per cent, involving drugs 26.9 per cent, and a combination of the two, 15.5 per cent. In total, more than 55 per cent of all car fatalities involved alcohol and/or drugs.

In Ontario, 10.2 per cent of fatal crashes involved alcohol, 31.6 drugs, and 12 per cent a combo of the two.

Wynne said Ford’s plan to allow booze in corner stores — and possibly cannabis, once legalized — is “reckless.”

She also accused the NDP of not funding training and enforcement and said the party would open stores “in a haste.”

The NDP said the Liberals are wrong and that “no existing funding is removed in the NDP plan.”

“In fact, the concern Andrea Horwath has expressed about the Wynne-Ford plan is that it includes just 40 retail locations for all of Ontario — a number so low, the black market — the criminal element — will thrive,” said Greta Levy, the NDP’s press secretary.

“The plan for legalization needs to include making safe, regulated cannabis available. Their plan doesn’t do that. Horwath’s will.”

Just before the May long weekend, Ford announced a PC government would “expand the sale of beer and wine into corner stores, box stores and grocery stores all across our province ... it is time to acknowledge that Ontario is mature enough for this change and ready to join other jurisdictions in making life a little more convenient.”

He said sales would be regulated in the same way the Beer Store and LCBO currently are.

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“Other provinces have already conclusively demonstrated that you can expand points of sale in this way while rigorously enforcing the law,” Ford has also said. “Our plan both respects Ontario consumers and supports some of our most dynamic local businesses. It is the right thing to do for the people.”

Referring to beer and wine sales in grocery stores — which, when fully rolled out, will be in 450 stores — Wynne said “our government actually made the biggest change since prohibition.

“But we’ve done it in a way, working in partnership with organizations like MADD, that understand that there are real challenges to having a safe, balanced, responsible distribution around alcohol.”

Allowing the private sector to sell cannabis means “you could have a situation where you have marijuana and beer and wine beside the candy bars,” she said. “... This societal change needs to be managed much more responsibly than that.”

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