Case information

None.

Case summaries are prepared by the Office of the Registrar of the Supreme Court of Canada (Law Branch). Please note that summaries are not provided to the Judges of the Court. They are placed on the Court file and website for information purposes only.

At approximately 9 p.m. on 1 April 2001 a search warrant issued pursuant to the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act ("CDSA") was executed by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police at the residence of the Appellant in Deer Lake. Twenty-seven full one gram vials of cannabis resin, one five gram container of cannabis resin, seventy-two empty vials contaminated with trace amounts of cannabis resin, and seven hundred and five dollars in cash were seized. The Appellant was charged with possession of a controlled substance for the purpose of trafficking pursuant to section 5(2) of the CDSA.

The trial commenced with an application by the Appellant for a remedy under section 24(2) of the Charter to exclude the evidence seized as a result of the execution of the warrant, due to an alleged violation of s. 8 of the Charter. No evidence was called on the application by either the Appellant or the Crown. The facts of the search and seizure were agreed upon, and a copy of the information to obtain and the warrant to search were filed with the Trial judge.

The information to obtain the search warrant was comprised of 23 paragraphs of information stretching over five pages. It contained information from three police confidential informations, as well as information obtained directly by the police through other means. There was no challenge at trial to the validity of any of the material contained in the information to obtain. The Appellant's written and oral submissions at trial were restricted to a facial attack on the sufficiency of the information to obtain advanced in support of the issuance of the warrant.

The trial judge found that the Appellant's s. 8 Charter rights had been breached and that the evidence seized from the Appellant's residence on 1 April 2002 should be excluded pursuant to section 24(2) of the Charter. On 14 June 2002, after having been granted time to consider the implications of the ruling on the Charter motion, the Crown elected to call no further evidence. The Court then dismissed the charge against the Appellant, on application by Defence counsel. On appeal, the majority of the Court of Appeal allowed the appeal and remitted the matter back to the Provincial Court for a new trial. Welsh J.A., dissenting, held that the trial judge had not erred in concluding that there was not sufficient information on which a justice of the peace could issue a warrant; the search contravened section 8 of the Charter and the evidence should be excluded under section 24(2).