The Ontario government is now seizing cars owned or driven by repeat drunk drivers under the province's amended civil forfeiture law, the first program of its kind in Canada.

"This new law is a message to drunk drivers: Stop your irresponsible behaviour or you could lose your wheels," Ontario Attorney General Chris Bentley said in a release Monday.

Bentley was in South Porcupine, near Timmins, where he gave one of three seized vehicles to the Ontario Community Council on Impaired Driving and Action Sudbury so they can raise awareness about the dangers of drunk driving.

Under the amended law, which was passed last February, the government can sell or give away a car owned or driven by a driver involved in two or more drinking and driving offences within the past 10 years.

"This new law is very important in fighting impaired driving," said Anne Leonard, executive director of the Ontario Community Council on Impaired Driving.

Drinking is a factor in about a quarter of all fatal crashes in Ontario with twice as many people killed in drinking and driving related crashes in the summer, compared to winter, the release said.

Of 3,226 people killed in motor vehicle crashes in Canada in 2005, Mothers Against Drunk Driving estimated that 1,210 of these fatalities involved impaired driving.

That same year, about 71,413 of 380,668 people injured in vehicles were hurt in impaired driving crashes, the group estimated.