DUI and Impaired Driving Charges in Calgary
Impaired driving is among the most heavily litigated areas of criminal law in Canada, and there are more ways to challenge these charges than most people realize. Our Calgary DUI lawyers defend cases under both the Criminal Code and Alberta’s Immediate Roadside Sanctions scheme.
Charged with dangerous driving, failing to stop after an accident, fleeing police or driving while prohibited? Those are non-alcohol Criminal Code charges, covered on our criminal driving offences page.
Written by Mike Gilchrist, criminal defence counsel at Hoare Claxton, based on cases conducted in Calgary courts and on SafeRoads Alberta reviews. Last reviewed September 19, 2026.
Our office is steps from the Calgary Courts Centre, where the majority of our criminal cases are heard.
Two Systems, Two Clocks
Alberta runs a dual system for impaired driving. Which track your case falls into changes how it is defended and, critically, how fast you have to act.
1. The Immediate Roadside Sanctions scheme (provincial)
On 1 December 2020, Alberta moved most impaired driving enforcement out of the Criminal Code and into the provincial Immediate Roadside Sanctions scheme under the Provincial Administrative Penalties Act. Where a driver registers a fail or a warn on an approved screening device, police may serve a Notice of Administrative Penalty at the roadside instead of proceeding by criminal charge.
An IRS sanction does not create a criminal record. The consequences are still immediate and substantial.
IRS: FAIL
A reading at or over 80 mg%, a refusal, or a confirmed drug evaluation
First occurrence:
- A 90-day licence suspension during which you cannot drive under any circumstances: no work exemption, no medical exemption.
- A further 12-month suspension during which you may drive only on the Ignition Interlock Program. If you choose not to participate, you simply remain suspended for those 12 months.
- A 30-day vehicle seizure. Towing and storage are at your expense.
- A $1,000 fine plus a 20% victim fine surcharge.
- Mandatory completion of the Planning Ahead course before the interlock device can be installed.
A second occurrence carries the same 90-day absolute suspension followed by 36 months on the interlock, a $2,000 fine and the IMPACT program. A third carries a lifetime interlock condition.
IRS: WARN
A reading between 50 and 79 mg%
- First occurrence: 3-day suspension, 3-day vehicle seizure, $300 fine.
- Second occurrence: 15-day suspension, 7-day seizure, $600 fine, plus a remedial course.
- Third occurrence: 30-day suspension, 7-day seizure, $1,200 fine, plus the IMPACT program.
IRS: ZERO
Novice and commercial drivers
Drivers in the Graduated Driver Licensing program and drivers of commercial vehicles are held to zero tolerance. Any detectable alcohol or drugs brings a 30-day suspension and a 7-day vehicle seizure, with no fail-level reading required.
2. Criminal Code impaired driving
Police retain the discretion to charge criminally. That discretion is typically exercised where there is a prior related record, where the readings are significantly elevated, or where the driving caused injury or death.
A Criminal Code conviction brings a permanent criminal record, a mandatory minimum penalty and a mandatory driving prohibition, and it does not displace the provincial consequences. A conviction also carries licence suspension and mandatory Ignition Interlock participation as a condition of reinstatement in Alberta.
Criminal Code cases are more complex to defend and the defences available are more extensive, which is a large part of why these prosecutions are among the most litigated in the country. We defend cases on both tracks, and the two frequently run in parallel.
What Police Have to Get Right
Most DUI defences are built here. From the moment of the stop to the moment evidentiary samples are taken, the investigation is governed by specific legal requirements. Where those requirements are not met, the evidence flowing from the failure can be excluded.
The stop
Police in Alberta may stop vehicles at random to check sobriety, licensing, insurance and mechanical fitness. That authority is settled, and checkstops are lawful. The question is not whether the officer had grounds to stop you; it is whether the stop stayed within its lawful highway-safety purpose.
A stop made for an improper or arbitrary purpose, or a detention extended beyond what that purpose justifies, can ground an arbitrary detention argument under section 9 of the Charter. Where it does, everything obtained afterwards is open to exclusion under section 24(2).
The roadside screening demand
There are two routes to a roadside breath demand, and they have different requirements.
- Mandatory alcohol screening. Since December 2018, an officer who has an approved screening device at hand during a lawful stop may demand a sample without any suspicion at all. Whether the stop was lawful and whether the device was genuinely at hand are live questions.
- Suspicion-based demand. Where the officer reasonably suspects alcohol in the body, a demand may be made on that basis. The suspicion has to be reasonable, and it has to be grounded in something.
On either route the sample must be provided immediately. Delay between the demand and the test, or a demand made on a defective basis, are grounds for challenging the screening result.
Your right to counsel
From the moment you are detained you must be informed without delay of your right to retain and instruct counsel and given a reasonable opportunity to exercise it. Police must hold off on taking evidentiary breath samples until you have had that opportunity. Failures here (delay in facilitating the call, no privacy for it, pressing on before counsel is reached) are serious Charter breaches, and we pursue them.
The approved instrument and its operation
An evidentiary breath test has to satisfy specific statutory conditions before the results carry their presumed accuracy: an approved instrument, a qualified technician, samples taken as soon as practicable after the demand, at least 15 minutes between samples, and system blank and calibration check results within tolerance.
Where those conditions are not met, the presumption is not available, and the reliability of the readings is open to challenge. Maintenance and calibration records are part of disclosure, and we ask for them in every case.
The screening result under the IRS scheme
Approved screening devices are less precise than evidentiary instruments, and the circumstances of the roadside test matter. Recent consumption, mouth alcohol, belching or regurgitation, and the device’s own maintenance and calibration history all bear on reliability. The grounds available on a SafeRoads review include whether the result can be relied on.
Drug-impaired investigations
Drug cases follow a different investigative path, with its own requirements at each stage: standardized field sobriety testing at the roadside, evaluation by a drug recognition expert, and demands for blood or oral fluid samples.
The Criminal Code also sets per se blood drug concentration offences, including a summary-only offence at 2 ng of THC per millilitre of blood, a hybrid offence at 5 ng, and a combined offence at 2.5 ng of THC together with 50 mg of alcohol. An IRS: FAIL can also be issued following a drug evaluation. Every step in that sequence has requirements capable of being challenged.
The Seven-Day IRS Review Window
This deserves its own section because it is the most time-sensitive issue in Alberta impaired driving law.
If you were served with a Notice of Administrative Penalty at the roadside, you have seven calendar days from the date of service to request a review through SafeRoads Alberta. Seven calendar days: not seven business days, and it does not pause for weekends or holidays. A review fee applies, and it has to be paid within the same seven days. Filing the request without paying the fee does not preserve the deadline.
The review is administrative and entirely separate from the criminal courts. It is decided by a SafeRoads adjudicator on written submissions or at an oral review, not by a judge, and a decision is generally issued within 30 days of the notice. It is the only mechanism through which the suspension, the vehicle seizure and the fine can be contested.
SafeRoads does allow a late review request in limited circumstances, but it is discretionary and it is not something to plan around. Assume seven days.
There is also a separate deadline for a vehicle seizure review, which runs to the day before the vehicle is due for release.
Call us the day you are served if you can. The next morning at the latest.
The Consequences of a Criminal Code Conviction
A conviction reaches well beyond the sentence itself: a permanent criminal record, a mandatory driving prohibition, sharply elevated insurance premiums for years, employment consequences for anyone who drives for work or holds a security clearance, and real difficulty entering the United States.
Minimum penalties on a first offence
The minimum fine is graduated by the reading:
- $1,000 where the concentration was 80 to 119 mg%
- $1,500 where it was 120 to 159 mg%
- $2,000 where it was 160 mg% or over, and for a refusal
A driving prohibition of not less than one year also applies. A second offence carries a minimum of 30 days’ imprisonment, and a third or subsequent offence a minimum of 120 days, with longer prohibitions at each step.
Maximum penalties
- Impaired operation or over 80, with no injury: up to 10 years on indictment, or two years less a day on summary conviction.
- Causing bodily harm: up to 14 years on indictment, or two years less a day summarily. A 10-year maximum applies in the narrower case of an over-80 offence where the concentration was under 120 mg%.
- Causing death: indictable only, maximum life imprisonment.
The range between the minimum and the maximum is wide. Where a case lands within it depends heavily on how the defence is built and how effectively the Crown’s evidence is tested.
What To Do Tonight
If you were stopped in the last few hours, these are the things that matter before anything else.
- Do not drive. Driving while suspended is a separate offence, it extends your suspension, and it damages any review or defence you have running.
- Find the Notice of Administrative Penalty and the vehicle seizure notice. Photograph both, front and back.
- Write down the date you were served. The seven-day clock runs from that date, not from the day you got your car back or the day you first called a lawyer.
- Write out the night while it is fresh: the time of the stop, what the officer said, when the demand was made, when you were told about a lawyer, whether you reached one, and when each sample was taken.
- Do not post about it.
- Call us before the seven days run.
What Happens When You Call Us
We Listen
You tell us what happened from the moment you were stopped. The timeline, what the officer said, when the demand was made, when you were told about your right to a lawyer, what samples were taken. The detail matters more than people expect.
We Identify the Risks
We work out whether you are dealing with an IRS matter, a Criminal Code charge or both, what the deadlines are, and where the investigation is most vulnerable, from the stop through to the instrument.
We Explain Your Options
We tell you what you are facing. No softening, and no vague reassurance about how these things usually work out.
We Act
We file SafeRoads reviews inside the seven-day window. We obtain full Criminal Code disclosure, including maintenance and calibration records. We challenge the stop, the demand, the right to counsel procedure and the operation of the instrument, and we build the defence the case requires from the day we are retained.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the difference between an IRS and a Criminal Code DUI in Alberta?+
Alberta’s Immediate Roadside Sanctions scheme allows police to deal with most impaired driving matters under provincial legislation rather than the Criminal Code. An IRS does not create a criminal record, but it carries a licence suspension, a vehicle seizure, a fine and program requirements before you can be reinstated.
A Criminal Code charge results in a criminal record on conviction and carries mandatory minimum penalties. Police have discretion over which track to use, and that decision usually turns on prior record and the seriousness of the circumstances.
I only have seven days to appeal my IRS. What do I do?+
Call us today. The seven-day window to request a SafeRoads Alberta review runs from the date you were served with the Notice of Administrative Penalty. It does not pause for weekends or holidays, and the review fee has to be paid within the same window.
Missing it means the suspension, the seizure and the fine are confirmed. A late review request is possible in limited circumstances, but it is discretionary and not something to rely on.
How long is my vehicle seized for?+
An IRS: FAIL carries a 30-day vehicle seizure. An IRS: WARN carries three days on a first occurrence and seven on a second or third. Towing and storage costs are yours regardless of the outcome, and there is a separate review process for the seizure itself with its own deadline.
Can my DUI charge be challenged even though I failed the breath test?+
The reading is one piece of evidence, not the whole case. The stop has to have been lawful and within its purpose. The screening demand has to have been properly made and the sample provided immediately. Your right to counsel has to have been provided without delay before evidentiary samples were taken. The instrument has to have been an approved one, properly maintained and correctly operated, with the statutory conditions met.
A failure at any of those points is a basis for challenging the admissibility or the reliability of the breath evidence. Whether a particular case can be won depends entirely on its own facts, which is what a consultation is for.
What happens to my licence after a DUI in Calgary?+
Under the IRS scheme your licence is suspended at the roadside, and the suspension runs pending any review. On an IRS: FAIL that is 90 days during which you cannot drive at all, followed by 12 months during which you may drive only on the Ignition Interlock Program.
On a Criminal Code charge, a driving prohibition is usually imposed as a release condition while the matter proceeds, and a further prohibition follows on conviction.
Will a DUI conviction affect travel to the United States?+
A Criminal Code impaired driving conviction is treated as a criminal conviction by United States border authorities and can result in a finding of inadmissibility. An IRS that stays within the provincial scheme and produces no criminal conviction does not carry the same consequence, which is one of the reasons the distinction between the two tracks matters so much.
What is the minimum sentence for a first DUI offence?+
For a first offence with no injury or death, the minimum is a fine and a driving prohibition of at least one year. The fine is graduated by the reading: $1,000 for 80 to 119 mg%, $1,500 for 120 to 159, and $2,000 for 160 or over and for a refusal. Where bodily harm resulted the maximum rises to 14 years on indictment, and where death resulted the maximum is life imprisonment.
What if I refused to provide a sample?+
Refusing to comply with a lawful demand is itself an offence, and the minimum fine for a first offence is $2,000, higher than for impaired driving itself. Whether the demand was lawful is usually the central issue. If it was not properly made, the refusal charge may not stand.
Can I be charged if my reading was under 80?+
Yes. The Criminal Code contains two distinct offences. The first is operating while your ability to do so is impaired by alcohol or a drug, whatever the concentration. The second is having a blood alcohol concentration at or over 80 mg% within two hours of operating. A charge of impairment can proceed on the officer’s observations of driving and physical condition even where the reading was below 80, and in Alberta a reading between 50 and 79 brings an IRS: WARN.
How do I choose a DUI lawyer in Calgary?+
Ask whether the lawyer regularly conducts SafeRoads reviews as well as Criminal Code trials; the two run on different tracks and different clocks, and many cases involve both. Ask who will actually appear on your matter. Ask how they approach disclosure, including maintenance and calibration records for the instrument. And ask them to tell you the weaknesses in your case, not just the strengths.
We offer a free consultation and we will tell you straight what we think you are facing.
Related Practice Areas
Drug Offences Calgary
Impaired driving charges involving drugs frequently intersect with possession and trafficking allegations across Alberta.
READ THE DEFENCE GUIDEBail Hearings Calgary
Where impaired driving charges are aggravated by injury or a prior record, bail can be contested and driving conditions imposed.
READ THE DEFENCE GUIDEGeneral Criminal Defence Calgary
Full-service criminal defence across Calgary and Alberta with an emphasis on Charter litigation and evidentiary challenges.
READ THE DEFENCE GUIDEFacing a DUI or an IRS in Calgary?
The seven-day review window does not wait. Call (587) 355-8889 for a free consultation.