If you’ve been following the news about Ontario laws over the past month or if you’ve been pulled over for impaired driving, you may have noticed a change in some of the penalties for driving under the influence. Over the past few years, the Ontario government has been taking measures to attempt to reduce impaired driving and an increase in penalties is part of that. The Safer Roads and Communities Act was a law passed in 2024 but has only started to come into effect in 2026 and this has had many consequences on the impaired driving laws and consequences in the province.
We’ll review the bulk of the changes later in this article, but July is our primary concern here as there is one specific section of the the Act that came into effect on July 1. To make it clear, the new requirements affect anyone who has been criminally convicted of impaired driving on or after July 1, 2026.
The timeline for those convicted of impaired driving
Let’s break down what the current driving consequences are for anyone convicted of impaired driving. First of all, when a person receives a criminal conviction for impaired driving, the default rule is that that person will have their license suspended for at least one year at a first conviction, three years at a second conviction, and for life at a third conviction. Following a license suspension, a person is required to install an ignition interlock system into their car if they wish to resume driving.
Ignition interlock systems are well-known devices that attach over the ignition of a car and do not allow that car to be started unless the driver blows into a tube and the computer determines that they have zero alcohol in their system. These systems also usually require the driver to continue blowing into the tube at various points throughout their drive to continuously confirm that they are still sober. They have been in use by Ontario law enforcement for many years and are regularly considered as consequences for driving-related offences.
On the first or second conviction, once a person has their license back, they must install the interlock system for a specified period when they start driving again. On the first offence, the installation is one year. On a second offence, the system is installed for three years. On a third offence, if a person is able to reduce their lifetime ban have their license reinstated, they must have an interlock system for six years after that.
Reducing the suspension and interlock install period
While the lengths of time that your license may be suspended may seem daunting, there is a way for some drivers to get these periods reduced. Drivers who are only first or second time offenders who received sanctions for driving while drunk (excluding drivers who were driving under the influence of drugs) can complete a remedial measures program to reduce the length of the license suspension and the length of time the interlock is installed. If the program is completed, the license suspension is reduced to 3-6 months for first time offenders, and the interlock period is reduced to 9-12 months. For second time offenders, the license suspension can be reduced to 9 months and the interlock period reduced to 18 months.
AN IMPORTANT REQUIREMENT for the interlock period reductions is that the device is installed within 30 days of your license being reinstated. If you delay in doing the install, you will be subject to the default lengths for the interlock installation.
The new change this July
These interlock rules have existed for a while, but the new July change adds in an additional step that must be followed after the interlock period. Previously, once a person was done with their required period of using the interlock, the interlock would be removed and the person could go back to driving under normal conditions. Now however, after the interlock period, a convicted person is subjected to a six-month period where they remain required to have zero alcohol or drugs in their system whenever they drive. This overrides the way the usual impaired driving penalties work:
In Ontario, the usual penalties for drunk driving differ depending on the level of intoxication of the driver. Generally, if a person consumes a minor amount of alcohol, their blood alcohol concentration will be below 0.08, however depending on the concentration, they may be subject to license suspensions of one or more weeks, treatment programs, and monetary penalties if they are pulled over by police. If a person has had more to drink and their blood alcohol concentration increases above 0.08, they will be given a 90 day license suspension and vehicle impoundment, in addition to the other penalties from the lower concentration. That summarizes how penalties are established for alcohol, and the penalties remain the same for drug use, but instead of determining penalty based on alcohol concentration, the lower penalties are imposed for drugs when a person fails a roadside sobriety test and the higher penalties are imposed when a person fails an expert drug evaluation (usually preformed at a police station).
However, for anyone who is subject to the new six-month zero-tolerance period, the consequences of driving with any alcohol in their system or failing a roadside sobriety test are automatically set to the level of the 0.08 concentration consequences. To reiterate, if you are currently in the six-month zero-tolerance period after your interlock system has been removed, and you are pulled over with any alcohol in your system, you will be given an administrative license suspension which entails at minimum:
- A 90-day license suspension
- Seven-day vehicle impoundment
- Required $550 payment, plus a fee to have a licence reinstated
- Eight-hour educational course
It ought to be noted that administrative license suspensions are not like criminal charges; administrative suspensions occur immediately at the roadside, not waiting for their chance to be challenged in court. It is generally police discretion whether they impose a license suspension for any given incident, but a person subject to the six-month zero-tolerance period will definitely receive that suspension, which forces that person to exercise caution and obey the conditions.
If you have received an administrative license suspension
If you have been subjected to a suspension described above, either because you were subject to a zero-tolerance period or through another method where a police officer has imposed an immediate suspension, there are certain rules you ought to follow as well as certain legal steps that you can take going forwards.
Firstly, you should obey the conditions imposed by the license suspension. This will often be directly enforced, such as by impounding your car, but it goes without saying that even when you have a car at your disposal, you should not drive during a license suspension or before paying required fees. Doing so will lead to further suspensions and criminal charges with even more severe consequences.
Secondly, you have legal options when receiving a license suspension, although they differ from the legal options for a criminal charge. Your first step should be to get into contact with a lawyer that knows impaired driving law, such as the team at Karapancev Law, and explain your situation. License suspensions are generally harder to challenge than criminal allegations and so your individual circumstances must be understood by counsel so that we can determine if a challenge is possible in your case. Regardless, your lawyer should be able to provide you with the best advice for how to handle your situation and following their directions should lead you on a path towards the best result.
A quick overview of 2026’s other changes
The above section summarized what specifically changed on July 1, but there have been many changes that have occurred throughout 2026 so far and if you are a driver or have been convicted of impaired driving, these changes are important to know.
10-year look-back period
This is a major change that anyone with a previous impaired driving suspension should be aware of. It is a change that is not often well-explained, but can have the most serious of effects on future suspensions you receive. Simply put, the look-back period is the length of time into the past that a person’s previous driving incidents are considered as factors that may increase a penalty imposed today. Essentially, they are how long driving incidents remain on your record in terms of when law enforcement imposes penalties for a new incident.
Previously, when it came to administrative license suspensions, this look-back period was only 5 years, whereas the look-back period for criminal charges was 10 years. However, starting in 2026, the period for both has been standardized to 10. This means that if you have a recorded incident of impaired driving as far back as 2016, it will be considered and may contribute to a license suspension being imposed today. It is advised that if you have previous impaired driving incidents that the police are aware of, you make yourself aware of when those took place, and if any of them were within the past 10 years, be aware that those will result in worse consequences should you be involved in impaired driving today.
Impaired driving causing death
As another effort to increase the consequences of impaired driving, the legal penalties for impaired driving that causes death have been increased. They are, in fact, at one of the most severe levels possible for driving offences: If someone is convicted of impaired driving that caused a death, they must be given a lifetime license suspension, ensuring that they cannot drive at all from that point forwards.
Once 25 years of the suspension have passed, an offender can apply to have their license reinstated by completing education and treatment programs, but even so, a 25-year suspension is still very severe. This new level of penalty is a major boost to the penalties under the Highway Traffic Act and is important for Ontario drivers to be aware of.
