With a hot and sunny long weekend ahead of us, lots of people will be out on the water in their boats.

Dr Christopher Love with the Life Saving Society of Manitoba says the RCMP will be too.

“They are going to be doing more enforcement patrols with their various mobile units that they have. They will be enforcing the boating laws which are basically the same as driving laws.”

Keep in mind you can be charged with impaired operation of a watercraft, even if your watercraft doesn`t have a motor. Anyone charged will not only lose their boating license, but they can lose their regular driving privileges.

Love, with the Lifesaving Society of Manitoba, says on average there are 100-125 deaths from boating every year in Canada.

“About 25 to 35 per cent every year of those cases are involving intoxicants when we talk nationally. Here in Manitoba, we buck that national trend. We’ve been around, this year it’s 23 per cent higher than the national average, there's been double the national average and we want to avoid that. It’s not a good title to have to be above the national average when it comes to intoxication-related boating fatalities.”

With that in mind, police officers will step up spot checks for alcohol and booze on boats over this long weekend.

If you`re caught boating while impaired, you`ll lose your boating license, and normal driving privileges as well. Impaired boating also covers any watercraft that doesn`t have a motor, such as a canoe.

The increased checks are part of Operation Dry Water, coordinated by the Canadian Safe Boating Council, and the Lifesaving Society of Manitoba. Operation Dry Water is a campaign meant to raise awareness of the issue of intoxicated boating to bring down the number of accidents, injuries, and deaths from intoxicated boating.