An impaired driving charge in Ontario is two cases running at once. There is the criminal charge, decided in court months from now, and there is the licence suspension the province imposed at the roadside on the day, which does not wait for either.
About this work
It depends which paragraph is charged, and the two most common ones are proved in entirely different ways. Paragraph 320.14(1)(a) is operating a conveyance while the ability to operate it is impaired to any degree by alcohol or a drug. No reading is needed for that at all. It can be proved on the driving, the officer's observations, and the roadside conduct.
Paragraph 320.14(1)(b) is having, within two hours after ceasing to operate, a blood alcohol concentration at or above 80 milligrams of alcohol in 100 millilitres of blood. Impairment does not have to be shown at all. The reading is the offence.
That two hour framing is worth reading carefully, because it is not the same as the old law. The question is the concentration within two hours of ceasing to operate, not at the moment of driving. Section 320.15(1) then makes failing or refusing to comply with a demand its own offence, punished on the same scale.
A charge frequently includes more than one of these, and they do not stand or fall together. An answer to the reading is not an answer to the observations.
If you are not a citizen
This is the part that is usually missed until it is too late to do anything about it. Since 18 December 2018 the maximum for most impaired driving offences has been ten years, and that number does the damage rather than whatever sentence is actually imposed.
Section 36(1) of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act catches an offence punishable in Canada by a maximum of at least ten years. Section 320.19 of the Criminal Code sets that maximum at ten. So impaired driving sits in section 36(1) rather than the lesser section 36(2), and section 36(1) reaches permanent residents, not only foreign nationals.
Deemed rehabilitation, which used to clear a single old conviction with no application at all, requires under section 18(2)(a)(i) of the Regulations that the Canadian maximum be less than ten years. A conviction for an offence committed on or after 18 December 2018 fails that test permanently and can only be cleared by applying and paying.
Under section 64(2) of the Act, a permanent resident punished in Canada by a term of imprisonment of at least six months loses the right to appeal a removal order to the Immigration Appeal Division. At least six months, not more than six. Five months and six months are close to identical for the person serving them and completely different afterwards.
The sentence is the one number in this that is genuinely negotiable, and only while the Crown is still deciding what it will accept. A conditional discharge is not a conviction. A plea to a lesser included offence can move the matter out of section 36(1) altogether. None of that is available once sentence has been imposed.
Side by side
5 points of difference
Almost everybody who calls about this is describing the licence suspension and thinks it is the charge. They are separate proceedings on separate tracks, run by different authorities, and beating one does not undo the other.
The route
5 stages, each with its own clock
Every minimum below is set by the Criminal Code and the provision is named beside it. These are floors rather than expected outcomes, and none of them can be reduced by agreement between counsel.
The statutory minimum on a first offence, whether the Crown proceeds by indictment or summarily. It is a floor and not a tariff, and the driving prohibition below comes with it.
On a first offence under paragraph 320.14(1)(b), the minimum fine is $1,500 where the blood alcohol concentration is at least 120 and under 160 milligrams in 100 millilitres, and $2,000 at 160 or above. This escalation applies to first offences, and it raises the fine rather than adding jail.
Failing or refusing to comply with a demand is its own offence under section 320.15(1), and its first offence minimum fine is higher than for an ordinary reading. Refusing is not a way of avoiding the problem.
Imprisonment, as a minimum, on the second and on every one after it. The 120 days attaches to the third and subsequent offences, not to a second with a high reading.
One to three years on a first offence, two to ten on a second, and a minimum of three on each subsequent one, in each case plus the entire period of any sentence of imprisonment. The court has no discretion to decline it.
Before the meeting
6 things to bring
Bring what you have and say what is missing. A meeting with the papers in front of it settles in one sitting what two telephone calls will not.
Our approach
The same four steps on every matter, whether it is a refusal at the Federal Court or a ticket at the Provincial Offences court.
Book a consultationWe take the full history and read the documents before offering an opinion. Most bad advice comes from acting on half the facts.
You get a candid read on strength, timeline and cost, including when the honest answer is that you do not need to hire anyone.
We prepare the application, the defence or the appeal properly the first time, because fixing a weak record later is harder and dearer.
You hear from us at each stage, and you hear what a wait actually means rather than a date chosen to sound better.
Reported decisions
7 allowed of 22 reported since 2023
Public judgments of the Federal Court with Kapil Rathod as counsel of record, each checkable by citation on the court's own site. The rest were dismissed and are listed with these ones.
Super visa, parents and grandparents
2026 FC 99Docket IMM-23381-24
Application allowedWork permit, Temporary Foreign Worker Program
2026 FC 105Docket IMM-18690-24
Application allowedTemporary resident visa
2026 FC 805Docket IMM-20802-24
Application allowedPermanent residence, Express Entry
2025 FC 275Docket IMM-1797-24
Application allowedWork permit, job offer
2024 FC 1928Docket IMM-6445-23
Application allowedStudy permit
2024 FC 1487Docket IMM-3700-23
Application allowedTemporary resident visa
2024 FC 1453Docket IMM-10337-23
Application allowedAn impaired driving charge in Ontario carries a mandatory driving prohibition, a ten year maximum, and for anybody who is not a citizen a consequence fixed by the sentence rather than by the conviction.
All of that is settled before the case is over, which is why the disclosure is read before anything is agreed.
Common questions
8 answered here
Written to be read once and acted on rather than to be rung about. Each answer is complete where the law allows a complete answer.
Two things, and both are still catching people out. The maximum penalty for most of these offences went from five years to ten, which is what pulled impaired driving into serious criminality for immigration purposes.
The second is mandatory alcohol screening, in subsection 320.27(2). An officer who has an approved screening device in their possession may demand a breath sample in the course of the lawful exercise of their powers. There is no requirement of reasonable suspicion for that demand, which is the precondition that still applies to the demands in subsection 320.27(1).
In practical terms that removed a line of defence that used to succeed regularly. Arguing that the officer had no grounds to suspect alcohol does not answer a screening demand made under subsection (2). What remains available is whether the stop itself was a lawful exercise of powers, whether the device was an approved one, and whether the demand and what followed were carried out as the section requires.
It is suspended administratively, by the province, and that happens on the day rather than at the end of the case. It is not a punishment imposed by a court and it does not require anybody to prove anything to a criminal standard. The vehicle is commonly impounded at the same time.
This is the single most common misunderstanding about these charges. People arrive believing that fighting the charge will restore the licence, and by the time the charge is resolved the administrative suspension has already run its course. The two proceedings do not talk to each other.
We have not printed the provincial periods and fees here. They are set by Ontario rather than by the Criminal Code, they are revised, and a stale number on a page like this sends somebody to the wrong date. Bring the paperwork you were given at the roadside and we will read the actual dates off it with you.
In the disclosure, before anything is agreed. The Crown's file holds the officer's notes, the grounds for the stop, the demand, the times, the maintenance and calibration records for the instrument, and the video where there is any. A great many of these turn on whether the sequence in those documents is what the section requires rather than on whether the driver had been drinking.
Timing is the recurring theme. When operation ceased, when the demand was made, when the samples were taken, and whether the two hour window in paragraph 320.14(1)(b) is actually made out on the recorded times. These are questions of record, and they are answered from documents rather than from anybody's memory of the evening.
Nobody can tell you what a case is worth before that material has been read. Anyone who quotes you an outcome on the telephone, in either direction, is guessing, and on a charge that carries a mandatory prohibition and a possible immigration consequence that is an expensive thing to act on.
No. The roadside suspension is imposed by the province administratively and runs on its own timetable, and it will usually have finished long before the criminal charge is decided. The two are separate proceedings. Winning the charge prevents the court imposed prohibition and the record; it does not reverse a suspension that has already run.
No. Failing or refusing to comply with a demand is a separate offence under section 320.15(1), punished on the same scale as an impaired charge, and its minimum fine on a first offence is $2,000, which is higher than the $1,000 that starts an ordinary first offence. It also carries the same ten year maximum, so the immigration consequence is identical.
It used to be, more often than it is now. Subsection 320.27(2) lets an officer who has an approved screening device demand a sample in the course of the lawful exercise of their powers, with no requirement of reasonable suspicion. What is still worth examining is whether the stop was lawful, whether the device was approved, and whether the demand and the procedure that followed complied with the section.
Serious, and the reason is the maximum rather than your sentence. Ten years puts the offence inside section 36(1) of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, which reaches permanent residents. A sentence of at least six months would additionally remove your appeal to the Immigration Appeal Division under section 64(2). Both of those are decided in the criminal court, which is why they have to be raised before sentencing rather than after.
Not with the minimum, which is the same $1,000 across the range up to 120 milligrams. What a reading close to the line does affect is how much the timing evidence matters, because paragraph 320.14(1)(b) is about the concentration within two hours of ceasing to operate. That is a question for the disclosure rather than an answer we can give in advance.
Bring the roadside paperwork and your court date. An impaired driving charge in Ontario is assessed from the disclosure, and the immigration consequence is decided at sentencing.
