Hello,

Years ago I was charged of stunt driving, my lawyer was able to reduce the charge to a Dangerous Driving, with a Conditional Discharge. During my 15 month probation I completed all conditions and paid all fines. Fast forward 8 years, I have recently plead guilty to a DUI. Needless to say, I feel horrible. I don't know why I got behind the wheel but I did, and now its time to pay the penalty. My issue here is that the MTO is telling me I have a 3 year suspension on my licence because they are assessing the DUI as a second conviction. This isn't true because a discharge is finding evidence of guilt (which I was) but without the registration of a conviction. Until this DUI, I had a clear criminal record.

I have contacted the local courthouse to record the court record and forward the information to the Driver Control Office. A rep from this office told me in their records that it was registered as a conviction on their systems. Could this just be an error in the system or does the MTO register these discharges still as convictions?

Thank you for your time.

It sounds odd that you plead guilty to a Criminal offence when you were only charged with a Provincial offence.

Regardless, administrative suspensions are covered under section 41 of the Highway Traffic Act. Subsection 5 reads as follows:

(5) This section applies in the same manner as if a person were convicted of an offence if the person pleads guilty to or is found guilty of an offence referred to in subsection (1) and,

(a) an order directing that the accused be discharged is made under section 730 of the Criminal Code (Canada) or under a provision that is enacted by a state of the United States of America and that is designated by the regulations

Section 730 of the Criminal code is the part dealing with discharges. Therefor my understanding of subsection 5 is that the Registrar of Motor Vehicles stills considers a conditional discharge a conviction in terms of your driving history. So your impaired conviction would unfortunately be your a second infraction and incur a 3 year suspension.

Is there any appeal process? A 3 year interlock on my vehicle is excessive considering my this is my first DUI offense. Also, seeing that my discharge was greater than 3 years ago, and no criminal conviction is shown on my record, how would they be able to see the charge and issue such a decision?

I had a conditional discharge before, it will still show up on your record to police agencies. But if someone did a background check on you it would not show up. So basically there is a record that it happened but nobody can see it except police agencies.

DonkADoog wrote:

Is there any appeal process? A 3 year interlock on my vehicle is excessive considering my this is my first DUI offense. Also, seeing that my discharge was greater than 3 years ago, and no criminal conviction is shown on my record, how would they be able to see the charge and issue such a decision?

As stated above, the MTO still receives notification of conditional discharges and counts them as a regular conviction. As far as they're concerned, you were convicted. The H.T.A. lists all the criminal offences which can result in a suspension, including dangerous driving and impaired driving. They treat them all as one and the same (it doesn't need to be two convictions for the exact same offence). They count all convictions which occurred within 10 years of the most recent.

I don't believe there is any appeal process, unless the Judge orders an additional suspension above and beyond the default one.