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It’s called the bolus drinking or “drinking and dashing” defence — and as of last month, it no longer exists. It’s now illegal to be over the limit within two hours of driving.

It’s one of many controversial changes in the massive overhaul of impaired driving laws by the Liberal government that came into effect Dec. 18. It’s now a criminal offence to have a BAC “at or over” the legal limit — 80 mg of alcohol in 100 ml of blood — within two hours of driving or boating. And the onus is now on drivers to prove they weren’t over the legal limit when they were behind the wheel. Or oar.

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Impaired driving is the leading criminal cause of death in Canada. To fight the scourge, everyone wants to punish the truly guilty who otherwise exploit legal loopholes to walk free. The concern is that with these sweeping and overzealous changes, the innocent will be caught up as well.

Placing the onus on the accused is not only unfair, it’s unnecessary since the bolus drinking defence was used rarely and often unsuccessfully, argues criminal lawyer Joseph Neuberger. “It’s ridiculous.”

Now we have a scenario, he suggests, where someone with an axe to grind could report your driving to police as impaired. In the meantime, you’ve come home and been enjoying several free-poured scotches while relaxing in front of the TV.

The police could theoretically knock on your door to investigate the complaint and ask you to take a breath test. You fail. It’s up to you to then hire a toxicologist and prove in court how much you’d been drinking at home, hopefully with the back-up of witnesses, to explain the reading and prove it wasn’t possible that you were over the limit when you were on the road two hours earlier.