Drug Offences

You've been charged with a criminal offence, such as conspiracy to traffic cocaine. The police used an agent and a wiretap to gather incriminating evidence against you. In doing so, they breached your Charter rights. The presiding judge rules that...

"Dynamic Entires" are a tactic commonly used by the police in drug investigations.  Although they thought they could, it turns out the police cannot just have a policy of bashing in your door and throwing a "distraction device" into your front entrance way...

When you cross the border into Canada from the USA, you are subjected to a search, where there is a lower expectation of privacy than you would otherwise have. A recent decision of the Ontario Superior Court considered the use of both detector dogs and ion scanners at...

In May 2018, the Ontario Court of Appeal in R v Vu, 2018 ONCA 436 has struck down mandatory minimum sentences (MMS) in relation to the productions of marijuana. Parliament had implemented a sliding scale of MMS for marijuana production offences. The MMS go from 6...

A recent Ontario Superior Court decision, R v Boekdrukker, addressed this issue. The Court examined both what is required in the Criminal Code as well as what is required under the common law. Section 29(1) of the Criminal Code states that: "It is the duty of every...

The Supreme Court recently ruled in the case of R v Paterson, 2017 SCC 15, that police cannot search your home without a warrant simply because it would be impractical to obtain one. Warrantless entries must be compelled by urgency, immediate police action to preserve...

An I.T.O. or Information To Obtain, is a document filed by a police officer to a Judge seeking authorization to obtain a search warrant, often to look for evidence of drug offences. This document is accompanied by an affidavit of the officer. The affidavit, a document...

In mid-December, a colleague of mine, Jon Doody, wrote a blog post regarding the rights of police to search a residence when conducting an investigation, such as into drug offences. He outlined the ways in which police may enter a person's residence and search. A...

In a drug investigation, as with other kinds of investigations, there are three ways that a police officer may enter your home: (1) with your permission, (2) with a warrant, or (3) in certain emergencies. These rules generally only apply to entering your house, not on...

In R. v. McGuffie 2016 ONCA 365, the Ottawa Police Service received a telephone from a downtown bar advising that a group of five men in the bar had been seen passing a handgun around. McGuffie walked away quickly from the bar. The officer followed him and caught up...