What is the standard of reasonableness under the Superintendent's Power Grid Guidelines?

The policies and guidelines of the Superintendent, and in particular the grids, advance the objectives of “justification, transparency and intelligibility within the decision-making process” that the standard of reasonableness is concerned with (Dunsmuir v. New Brunswick at para. 47). Chamberlist J., in Penonzek v. Weaver, noted that while the guidelines do not have the force of law and simply establish ranges for the assistance of the Superintendent and his delegates, they are, on their face, a reasonable attempt by the Superintendent to discharge his obligation to protect the public (at paras. 24 and 27). I agree with both of these observations but recognize that whether in any specific circumstance their application may not yield a reasonable result.

The appellant argues that the Superintendent’s decision to prohibit him from driving for two months was unreasonable. That is so, it is argued, because the imposition of a prohibition is, in the language of the Superintendent’s policies and guidelines, “the most serious intervention” open to him and ought not to have been imposed, according to the appellant, in his circumstances for a number of reasons. First, although he is subject to the graduated licensing program, he is not an inexperienced driver given that his driving record reveals that he was first granted a driver’s licence in this province in September 1998. Second, his driving record consists of three moving violations, none of which involved excessive speed and, to the extent that they reveal a pattern that suggests that his driving habits are improving. While emphasizing, as Rogers J. pointed out in Thomas v. British Columbia (Superintendent of Motor Vehicles) at para. 12 that the grid is not simply an algorithm that dictates the result in any particular instance, if the Superintendent had applied the grid applicable to experienced drivers, he would not be subject to a prohibition.