Aaron Libby, 49, steadies himself on a wooden cane as he makes his way to the front of the EMS Headquarters’ warehouse. Rows of first responders sit before him, and parked behind him are three vehicles — a taxi, an ambulance and a hearse.
“You never want to be a statistic,” he says. “But here we are today. Not because we want to be, because we were made to be.”
Libby, now the director of Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) Calgary and area, was injured in a head-on collision with an impaired driver in 2013. After life-saving measures, a brain injury, and months of physical therapy, Libby’s life has been divided into before and after the crash.
“I’m not the guy my wife married. My kids don’t have the father… that can physically do things with them,” says Libby.
He only remembers fragments of the night that changed his life.
“My body remembers it. My brain doesn’t,” he says. “I remember feeling the pressure of one lung collapsing, then another. I could feel where the bone came out on my wrist, and the shaking — probably when they were rolling me across the asphalt.”
He pauses. “There is a light at the end of the tunnel. I’ve seen it twice.”
He is one of many. And his story, like thousands across Canada, is the backdrop for a national push toward harsher, faster impaired-driving penalties.
Having been normalized for generations, impaired driving remains embedded in social habits and routines. The most recent statistics from 2023 show 474 impaired driving incidents causing death or bodily harm, the most incidents since 2017.
As a response, Immediate Roadside Sanctions (IRS) are expanding across Canada and showing results. Still, critics warn of uneven adoption across provinces and penalties that don’t go far enough.
“It’s designed to get them in the pocketbook,” says Libby. “They’ll think twice next time.”
Immediate Roadside Sanctions
For decades, Canada relied on traditional court processes to handle impaired driving cases — a system often slowed by backlogs, procedural delays, and contested trials.
In 2020, Alberta launched the IRS program to shift enforcement from the courts to the roadside.
“The biggest thing with the Immediate Roadside Sanctions is saving court time,” says Calgary Police Service (CPS) Sgt. Sam Saban.
This program gives police the power to issue on-the-spot penalties, such as license suspensions, vehicle seizures, and hefty fines, when a driver fails or refuses a roadside test.
According to CPS Chief Katie McLellan, Calgary officers laid 112 impaired driving charges and issued over 2,200 Immediate Roadside Sanctions in 2024.
“These numbers reflect more than enforcement — they represent lives potentially saved, and families spared unimaginable pain,” said McLellan in a statement.
Every province except Prince Edward Island has implemented some sort of immediate penalty program. None of the territories has adopted one, and the national numbers — as of 2023 — reflect that gap.
Provinces that have embraced harsher penalties tend to see lower impaired driving rates; Ontario reports 103 incidents per 100,00 residents, and Alberta 175.
Prince Edward Island, lacking a roadside sanctions system, records 515 per 100,000.
Rates in the territories are even higher, ranging from 1,225 per 100,000 residents in the Yukon to 3,220 in the Northwest Territories.
MADD Canada CEO Steve Sullivan says the organization wants full national adoption.
“We think that’s really effective. At the end of the day, it just takes more impaired drivers off the road, which makes us all safer,” Sullivan says.
Critics of the system
Yet the system continues to raise concerns among some officers, advocates and lawyers. Critics note that moving impaired-driving enforcement out of the criminal system may resolve court delays but introduces new questions about consistency and fairness.
“I’ve been struggling with that,” says CPS officer and MADD board member Craig Dymock. “We see how serious these collisions are, how serious impaired driving is, and they still don’t get a criminal record. But the second you make it a criminal charge, then it goes back to the old way of lawyers dragging it out forever, clogging up the justice system.”
Dymock also raises concerns with the strength of the penalties themselves.
“The IRS sanctions are too soft,” he says. “And this is probably just the way of the world, but the lawyers are able to get these immediate roadside suspensions cancelled quite easily.”
Defence lawyers also note limitations. David Chow, an Alberta roadside-sanctions lawyer, argues that the IRS model shifts power from courts to police, allowing people to lose their licences, pay fines and have their vehicles seized without traditional criminal-court safeguards.
Some lawyers have successfully challenged IRS penalties in cases involving equipment calibration issues, missing documentation, or procedural mistakes, such as failures to offer a proper roadside appeal.
“It is not unusual to hear the accused persons… claim that the officer pulled the device away mid-blow… then after allegedly interfering with the test, blame the motorist for some kind of brinkmanship,” writes Chow in a blog post.
A ribbon as a reminder
Sullivan says that sanctions work to remove impaired drivers from the road, but awareness campaigns aim to prevent impaired driving before it starts. He emphasizes that real progress depends on cooperation between advocacy groups, law enforcement and policymakers.
“We’re never going to arrest our way out of this problem,” Sullivan says. “But we do know that high-profile, highly visible enforcement is really important, because what does change people’s behaviour is their perception of getting caught.”
Project Red Ribbon is an awareness campaign that promotes safe driving during the holiday season. From Nov. 1 to Jan. 5, MADD Canada and local chapters distribute red ribbons and car decals to display on vehicles and bags.
“We all have a part to play in educating the public and reminding them that choosing to drive sober, or helping someone else make that choice, can mean the difference between someone coming home safely, or not at all,” says McLellan at the campaign launch.
Donning the red ribbon is a pledge never to drive impaired, and a visible reminder that keeps the message at the forefront of others ‘ minds.
This campaign is just one example of MADD’s work. Beyond awareness, the organization provides victim support services and advocates for stronger legislation, making it the “only anti-impaired driving organization that provides direct services to victims and survivors.”
Libby, who was formerly a social worker, joins survivors and families from across Canada at MADD’s National Conference for Victims of Impaired Driving, a weekend of reflection, workshops and shared grief.
In hotel meeting rooms transformed by soft light and silence, nearly 300 people gather to trade stories and hold space for one another. Some have lost parents, partners, or children. Others, like Libby, live with the lasting injuries of someone else’s decision.
The numbers behind the crisis
Despite decades of awareness, impaired driving remains one of Canada’s leading causes of road fatalities. Impaired driving means operating a vehicle under the influence of alcohol, drugs — including THC, stimulants, and opioids — or any combination of substances.
Drug-related impairment is increasing. Another report shows a steady rise in serious collisions involving drivers under the influence of drugs or multiple substances.
Still, alcohol remains the dominant factor in impaired driving collisions in Canada. In 2023, alcohol-related incidents accounted for more than 10 times the number of serious collisions compared with incidents involving drugs alone.
“I can tell you from experience, there are impaired drivers that are pulled over each and every day on the streets of Calgary,” says Saban, CPS police sergeant.
Over the past five years, nearly 4,000 Albertans have been convicted of impaired driving each year, according to the Calgary Police Commission’s Monthly Chief Report for September.
McLellan shared that there were 29 fatal collisions in 2024, six involving impairment. This year has already surpassed last year’s 10-year high of fatal collisions, with four being attributed to impaired driving, and the year is not yet over.
“While the numbers for impairment may not seem high, each one represents a life lost and a family forever changed,” she says. “Behind every statistic is a loved one who did not come home, and a first responder who had to deliver that heartbreaking news.”
Why people still drink and drive
Doug Beirness, a senior research associate at the Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction, says most impaired drivers don’t see themselves as impaired at all.
“What I’ve learned is that people drink and drive probably because they don’t even think about it,” he says. “It’s just part of their everyday routine.”
Beirness calls it a form of “positive reasoning.” With habit, normalization, and perceived control as key factors, many offenders report believing they were okay to drive.
“People talk themselves into it,” he says. “When what they should really be doing is talking themselves out of it.”
Beirness points out that early media campaigns targeting “drunk” driving unintentionally led many Canadians to believe that driving after just a few drinks wasn’t dangerous. He adds that many people still misunderstand the science of impairment, clinging to myths that one drink per hour is safe or that a coffee can sober them up.
“Impairment starts with the first drink,” says Beirness. “It doesn’t take much at all.”
Changing behaviour, not just the law
Beirness concludes that although immediate penalties make justice faster, the deeper issue, the mindset behind the wheel, remains unchanged.
“What never crosses their mind is that they might not make it home,” says Beirness. “Somebody else might not make it home because of them.”
While the number of incidents resulting in bodily harm may be lower now, the grief of even one crash holds the same weight.
For Aaron Libby, it was one drive home. He was left permanently disabled, unable to work, and with lasting PTSD.
The driver who hit him served just eight months of his 14-month sentence.
“I shouldn’t have survived. I was told I’d never get out of a wheelchair. I’d never walk,” says Libby.
“I’m serving a life sentence.”
