FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

Thank you for reaching out to Tim Foster K.C. about your Immediate Roadside Suspension, otherwise referred to as a Notice of Administrative Penalty (“NAP”). Tim is the leading defence lawyer in Alberta for these IRS Reviews and has successfully conducted hundreds of hearings in the last several years since the program began in Alberta.

We frequently provide advice to other lawyers dealing with these hearings, and if they are unsuccessful we are one of the few law firms in Alberta that will apply for Judicial Reviews to the Court of King’s Bench. Most of the leading cases in this area have been argued by Tim and his partner Katherin Beyak, including the landmark case of Lausen v. Alberta (Director of SafeRoads), 2023 ABCA 176, which overturned the initial practice of the Adjudicators and many decisions of the Court of King’s Bench and subsequently resulted in literally hundreds of successful arguments by drivers who had been issued a NAP.

The NAP is not a criminal conviction and will not give you a criminal record or prevent you fro travelling to other countries. Think of it as a very serious traffic ticket, which has extremely serious consequences, as discussed below.

There is no trial. You have the option of proceeding with a written review or an oral review, which is an online hearing of 30 minutes for no longer than 30 minutes. Our practice is to file a Sworn affidavit from you and also file a written argument, and then appear for the oral hearing. We find this is the most effective way to be successful.

Here are the answers to the most Frequently Asked Questions.

Time Deadlines (7, 21, 30)

If You Received an NAP, There Is No Court Date, as Your Only Method of Appeal Is to Apply for a Review Before an Adjudicator. Do Not Miss the 7-Day Appeal Period, or You May Lose Your Right to Apply for a Review.

The law requires that the application for a review by an Adjudicator must be filed within 7 days of when you were issued the NAP, which is Day 0.

Although Late reviews are theoretically possible, they require a separate application, which is rarely granted in practice. Once we file the application for review for you, we will be able to schedule a video hearing in front of the adjudicator. You are not required to attend that review if we are there on your behalf, but you are welcome to do so, and Alissa will assist you with accessing the hearing.

Once the application for a review is filed, the Hearing itself must be held within 21 days of when you were issued the NAP. Our written materials to be filed on your behalf must be submitted at last 3 days prior to the hearing date. We require full payment prior to preparing and submitting the written materials, failing which we will simply withdraw as your lawyer, and you will have to deal with it yourself.

The Adjudicators almost never issue a decision the same day as the review is held but will reserve and provide a written decision. The decision must be issued within 30 days of the day you were issued the NAP. Even if we win, you will be suspended until the decision comes out. The Adjudicators almost always wait until the last day to issue their decision.

Fees Are $7500 Total or $5400 for a Staff Lawyer (Including the Initial Opinion Fee of $1050).

I charge a flat fee of $7500 to conduct a review of the NAP, including the filing fee of $150. If you have already decided to fight this NAP, you can forward $7500 to my assistant Alissa by credit card or E-transfer. While we can try to be flexible in the payment plan, we must be paid in full within 7 days of being retained so that we can prepare for the hearing. All of our materials must be filed online 3 days prior to the hearing. Please contact Alissa to arrange the method of payment at 403-233-9239 or by email at anadeau@roadlawyers.ca or shay@roadlawyers.ca.

Do the Opinion First for $1050.

We suggest that you retain me initially to provide an opinion on the likelihood of success in the hearing. I charge a non-refundable fee of $1050 to review the Police Reports on the APIS Portal and discuss the matter with you so that you can make an informed decision on whether it is worth pursuing the review. If you decide not to proceed with the appeal, no further payment is required.

If you decide to proceed with the review and retain me after my opinion, I will require the balance of $6450 ($7500 -$1050) within 7 days.

If you are unable to afford my services, we do have 2 staff lawyers who will conduct the review for $5400 (including the opinion fee of $1050 and the $150 filing, so a further payment after the opinion fee of $4350). Our staff lawyers have worked with me by researching all of the case law in this area and preparing draft arguments and affidavits for all of my Reviews over the last several years, so they are very familiar with the issue and case law. They will also have the benefit of my opinion and access to our research database, so they will know all of the issues and the arguments to be made.

If you wish to retain one of the staff lawyers, please contact Alissa to arrange payment of the retainer.

Late Review Applications.

There is an additional charge of $575 if a separate late review application is required ($525 fees plus $50 filing fee = $575). This is in addition to the opinion fee. We will advise you of your chances of success in the late review application when we give you our opinion on success in the hearing, as there is not much point in applying for a late review if there are no good arguments for the review itself.

Send Us All the Documents.

In order for us to give you the best advice possible, we will need you to provide us with copies of all the documents that you were given by the police. It is crucial that you provide us with all the documents and not just some of them, as there are some defences that are decided by what documents you were given, and it is important that we have an email chain showing that you sent us everything you were provided so that we can show that some documents were missing.

Likelihood of Success.

The government has set up this system because they were losing too many criminal impaired driving trials. The system is designed to restrict any defences to certain very limited pigeonhole categories. These are very complicated, but we have done more of these reviews than anyone else, and we know which defences are likely to be successful. Overall, only about 20% of these reviews are successful, but we win about 80%. Once we are retained to provide our opinion, we will let you know what we think your chances of success are, and it will be up to you to decide whether to proceed with the review.

Penalties Associated with the NAP.

There is an automatic 90-day suspension starting the day the NAP was issued, which prohibits you from driving. After the initial 90 days expire, there is an additional Mandatory suspension of 1 year, during which you can only operate a motor vehicle with an interlock ignition device installed. If this is a second contravention, the penalties are increased and include a mandatory 3-year suspension after 90 days. For a third contravention, there is a mandatory lifetime suspension after the initial 90 days.

In order to have the interlock installed, you must first complete the Planning Ahead course, which can be found on the SafeRoads website. We recommend that you sign up for this course as soon as possible, as previous clients have sometimes had difficulty completing the 1-day course before the initial 90-day suspension expires, as they are usually over-subscribed.

Once you have served 60 days of the initial 90-day suspension, you can book an installation date for the interlock, details are on the website. We suggest that you try to book the installation date for the day after your Planning Ahead course is scheduled, as they will give you a certificate of completion at the end of the day that you will have to present to the Interlock people before they install it in your vehicle.

There is also a 30 day seizure of your vehicle. The towing and storage charges usually add up to about $1400, although there are some tow companies that charge much more because they can.

If we win, the police will have to refund you for the towing and storage fees, but you will probably have to pay the tow company up front and then seek reimbursement from the police. We can help with that.

Insurance consequences – you should consult with your insurance company to find out the specific consequences in your case. Our understanding is that generally speaking, your insurance rates will triple for the next 5 years, but your insurance company may take a different approach, so please consult with them.

Logging in to the Saferoads Portal.

You can review all of the police reports and disclosure and the materials and arguments that we file on your behalf. You will need to search “SafeRoads Portal – Find my Contravention”, and you will come to a sign-in page that asks for the Contravention Number. This is an 8-digit number found in the top corner of the NAP that begins with an A or a C and ends with either the letter O or the letter A. Make sure you enter that number exactly as it is written on the NAP. Once you search for that Contravention, you will be asked to enter your last name, your date of birth, and the time of the Occurrence which is also found on the NAP in the top left corner. IF YOU DO NOT ENTER THE INFORMATION EXACTLY AS REQUIRED, YOU WILL NOT BE ABLE TO ACCESS THE PORTAL.

Accessing the Portal will take you to a Contravention page, and about halfway down that page, you will see a link for the same Contravention Number. Click on that link, and it will take you to a Contravention Details page containing details of the investigation and links to a number of Supporting Documents.

In order to log into the Review, you need to go back to the first Contraventions page after entering the login info and click on the Review button instead of the Contravention Details link, which will take you to the Review details page, where there is a box to click on to “Join the Meeting” for the review. You are not required to attend the Oral Review but may do so if you wish.

If you have problems accessing the Portal, just call the office and Alissa or Sandy will walk you through it.

Do Not Pay the Fines on the Saferoads Portal Unless You Want to Abandon the Appeal.

If you pay the fine, you are deemed to have abandoned the appeal, so do not ever do that.

Do not go and get your vehicle out of impound until you get the decision on the Review because if you win, then the Tow company might just give your vehicle back and send the bill to the police. If you pay it and win, you can get a refund but it takes a few months and is a lot of paperwork.

Tickets And/Or Criminal Charges.

Although we want to see copies of everything the police gave you as they may be helpful in this review, we will not be representing you on any tickets or criminal charges unless you retain us separately. They are completely separate from the IRS Suspension and are dealt with in a different court.

Contact our lawyers today to explore our services and experience the difference.