Seems, the learned ones don't go to school and public places that much, though they fly a lot.

"By use of the dog, the policeman could 'see' through the concealing fabric of the backpack."

No they couldn't "see through" it. The odour was in a public space. The identification of the odour is reasonable grounds to search the backpack.

These judges are idiots. How could one expect them to rule reasonably on the question of hate speech?

Good point, hoss

I suppose this will also hold for a person carrying a backpack full of explosives ... SCC rules!!!!

Boom ... Ha, Ha, Ha!!!!

Last time I looked CRA or Canada Customs could use dogs , cats , rats, bats or small gnewts for that matter with impunity to inspect your personal space each and every time they felt like it. Regardless of the port of entry into the country. Exactly how will this now change? This is the role CRA and Customs play. Regardless of what you felt about it. Now that these donkeys in the highest court have made their ruling.
This is just plain stupid.

You score again Kate! Excellent title. When will the lefties start understanding that they can't have it both ways? They can't handcuff the police, and at the same time go posting hate comments on internet sites. Where has common sense gone?

Master spy Stacey testifies.
http://www.socon.ca/or_bust/?p=819

Play the audio clip.

It seems like a good ruling to me. We don't allow the police to search people's briefcases at random looking for evidence of, say, money laundering, say, so (airports aside) I can't see how it should be any different for drugs or diamonds or explosives.

Mind you, as long as the dogs plant drugs or explosives and *then* sniff them out, that should be allowed, in keeping with the evidence-gathering precedents set by our vaunted CHRCs.

Talkinghead,

A few months ago a BC judge decided that a check for illegal drugs ... was, like, illegal.

We need to have a "pre-check" on the US side for things like drugs, bombs, guns etc ... CRA has no teeth thanks to our alleged judges.

BTW: I cross the border 100-200 times a year ... I get checked out 1-2 times on each side.

Today, I saved .24 a liter on gas ... when the carbon tax kicks in (in BC) ... I'm saving another 2.5 cents.

The overturning of the ON School sniffer search and the sniffer search done at the Greyhound bus depot in Calgary has reinforced just how out of tune with society the Liberal Justices really are.

That one of these two cases (perhaps both as they were dealt with together) was a 6-3 decision by the SCC to overturn the conviction speaks volumes in terms of just how sad our judiciary really is.

Is it possible to over-rule a supreme court decision by invoking the notwithstanding clause in the respective provinces? How else is anything going to change in terms of having the SCC basically allowing criminals to pursue their trade unencumbered.

Along the same line in Calgary (Thursday Herald). A car with two guys was stopped for speeding. A check was made of the vehicle and a stash of drugs was found, confiscated, and the two charged on both counts. In her wisdom, the judge held that the drug evidence be excluded (thus no drug conviction) because of a violation of the Charter. It seems that this may be appealed but time will tell. In her judgment - she felt that "the community" (whoever this is) "would not countenance" such a procedure on the part of the police. Pathetic. Of course, the judge does not have an e-mail address so the next best is the Minister of Justice.

The criminals here and abroad are laughing hard these days and no doubt planning a trip to Canada in the near future to pursue "business".

I'm with the SCC on this one. The key point, as I see it, is the matter of random searches. Not at borders. Not in specific security contexts. Jus' you an' me, walkin' down the street, with a dog's nose up our asp.

If we are to maintain the notion of due process, then under most circumstances the state should not be allowed to search us without due cause, and in particular, without a duly executed search warrant. We can't have law and order without law and order.

I'm going to try to get a grant (after the libs get into power again) to train dogs to sniff another dogs ass. I know ... seems impossible ... but thats why I want the big bucks!!!

I've watched the comments on the globe and cbc websites run into the hundreds today over this story. What everyone seems to be missing here is that the police really, truly, did step over the line in both of these cases.

These weren't searches of "suspects", they were searches of everyday ordinary citizens. In the one case the defendant was getting off the bus and "looked" suspicious. That's it. They didn't see him with the drugs, no one told them he may have drugs, he didn't say he had drugs. They just assumed that he "might" have drugs.

How many other people did they search this way before they got a hit? How many innocent ordinary people were delayed, accosted and distrupted from their every day lives by the police because they may have appeared or acted differently?

In the other case they rounded up an entire school, forced them to put their personal backpacks into the middle of a gym, and then wait for 2 hours while they put the hounds to the bags. They found one kid with a bit of weed, what about the other several hundred kids that were inconviencened and made to feel like criminals?

I for one would feel really offended, and violated if the police demanded that I put my bag down so a dog could sniff it for no good reason.

We have civil rights for a reason. Yet for some reason it seems the vast majoriy of us are willing to just give them up or let them be erroded.

The SOC got it right on this one.

And by the way, this doesn't effect airports or border crossings at all.

So many people have the view "I don't have drugs and I do nothing wrong so lets let the police do whatever they need to do"

That is all fine well and good until the police stop you.

Some people really baffle me, they want police to sniff them, they accept red light cameras, photo radar and will stand in line to pay a fee to register a gun. Unbelievable.

The company I work for has a GPS in the company vehicle.

I get my work done, and any problems are customer related with little or no bearing where my van is at any given time. I am in a company vehicle on company time so there is zero argument for not having it, but, I tell you from experience, it is not a comfortable feeling having a authoritative force(management) having a power over you.

The point is, the police need to follow the rules. And this is not a free pass for kids in school with drugs. One kid with a score to settle can still give the police a tip and then they have just cause. Just no random searches.

One more thing, this was a "Libertarian" vs. "Totaltarian" ruling, not "Liberal" vs "Conservative". I'm a conservative, but I value my freedoms more than any political party.

Jeff, one kid with a score to settle will be mince meat the day after the sniffer dogs arrive. That`s the beauty of random searches...there wasn`t necessarily an informant to settle with.

The Supreme Court should have left schools out of the equation. This is very bad news for schools. On the other hand, at least socialist Canada has found a good way to support free enterprise in state education.

AS usual, when common sense does not apply we get rulings like this. Those that used common sense were the minority view on this one.

What they did not take into account is that canines are highly trained police constables. The see with their noses. If a police canine constable sees that there are drugs then the human constable can correctly conclude that there are drugs present. We use similar logic at airports and the border.

Just more controls on the police by the loony left based on false assumptions.

There's always bomb sniffing dogs removed from the entrance to the SCC.
I can see this being quickly revisited, and reversed.

Any depressed Ragheads wanna pitch in?

Drug dealers using kids as mules in our schools. Drug dealers, laughing in the streets of Canada. We're not making this up...

The next time you pass a cop aiming a radar gun down the 401, randomly targeting civilian drivers,
stop and give him a piece of your mind... something to the effect that its an invasion of your privacy,
and that the Supreme Court backs you up. Much the same thing, isn't it?

Alienated - the radar gun you cite is a poor example. Driving a car is not a 'right' and that includes any activity associated with operating a motor vehicle. The onus is on the operator to be safe, sober, sane etc. and to prove it at any time.

But random dog sniffs ARE a reduction of basic rights. So are TV cameras in public places. The world is getting smaller - less room for rights I guess.

Its amazing the number of people here don't understand why the SCC ruled against this. This has nothing to do with drugs, or even schools.

While they are public schools, schools are not public places. The police, at a minimum, should have obtained a warrant. If regular, unannounced, inspections are desired, these should be arrived at through open, and agreed upon, public policy.

A police search, in the absence of reasonable or probable cause, or with lack of public debate to become public policy, is a presumption of guilt. It is a totalitarian exercise of authority to enforce an ideology, not investigate a criminality. The role of police in a free democratic society is to investigate an observed or apparent criminality, not enforce a morality on citizens. The police do not have discretion to coach against bad behavior.

With the collection of statutes and bylaws which now exist, everyone needs to understand that with unfettered access, NO ONE can escape a criminal or civil charge. NO ONE. Absolutely none of you can get through a day, a week, a month without breaking some law.

Michael said: "...Driving a car is not a 'right' and that includes any activity associated with operating a motor vehicle. The onus is on the operator to be safe, sober, sane etc. and to prove it at any time."

Ah, Michael, driving on a public road is so a "right". You have a legal responsibility to to do so safely and with due regard to other users, but you have a right to do so, nonetheless.

People seem to forget, in a democratic state, the state doesn't grant either rights or privileges to its citizens. Citizens grant rights and privileges to government, not the other way around. We don't exist to serve government, government exists to serve us.

If a person chooses to leave their home with contraband in their possession then I figure they are fair game. If a police officer can smell your dope and formulate grounds to arrest or detain you, then why not allow the use of a method that has a better sense of smell? Once the odour of your contraband goes beyond your personal space, it becomes public domain (like your garbage). I wonder at the mentality of our Courts. I wish we could hold them legally responsible for the damages their decisions cause. Let's not forget, there ARE dogs that detect explosives, and many drug dogs also detect firearms! We'd hate to miss those now wouldn't we?

Did I not read where the school itself call in the police? So what do school officials do to make their school a safe environment for dear johnny and jane?

Thank you skip, vitruvius and mike. One of the most depressing things i have done in my life was read the comment thread at the origninal story on CTV. It was at least 50-1 agaiinst this ruling. Most of the law and order hand-wringing ninnies were there shreiking about the same bollocks we see here from leslie, fiumara, tim etc. You guys have it exactly right, the police can't just wander around sniffing at stuff. They have to have probable cause to violate the security of your person for a search or get a warrant. The blind fools who think this is ok because it happened in a school and a school is public property, miss the point completely. they violated the privacy rights of the student by searching his posessions without cause or warrant. If you want to let that go because of some hysteria over DRUGS IN SCHOOLS (and for god sakes it was a little weed and some shrooms, not crack) you fail to realize it is a very slippery slope and the prosecutorial establishment loves chipping away at out due process rights because it simply makes their jobs easier. And we must fight that the regression of our relationship with the stae every step of the way.

But wait I forgot, all cops are angels and prosecutors never get it wrong. Let's ask Guy Paul Moran or Rob Baltovitch about how well it served them.

" ... driving on a public road is so a "right".

Skip you better check the Highway Traffic Act in your province if you think you have a "right" to drive. Unlike walking - for example. For starters you have no choice but to produce identification papers (licences, insurance etc) if asked by the police at any time. Your "right" to drive can be stripped (for cause) by the province for infractions or for health. No Skip ... driving is regarded as a privledge, not a right.

Sentenel

The next step to you argument is when you leave your home you are fair game....for the police to stop and search you because the dog would have but he/she/it was/is sick today and you were targeted for a search so bend over.

Jeff K - detecting and acting upon the odour of the contraband you are carrying is one thing, a completely random and arbitrary search is another!

Drug pushers 1
School kids 0

But of course this is the kind of injustice you get when most of the appointed Judges come a little narrow strip of land, which in no way, shape or form, is anywhere close to representing the demographics of 85% of the country.

Elected judges needed right now.

Call me crazy but I think that there has to be a way to attempt to keep schools as drug and gun free zones. As a parent, this further erodes my confidence in the public schools system to be able to create a safe learning environment.

The SCC is brain dead (6 of 9 anyway). A dog sniffing isn't a "search" any more than me seeing something is a "search". If a dog detects a suspicious odour it is reasonable grounds for an actual search.

i fully support outlawing arbitrary, random searches in publicly owned buildings and spaces. i'm no fan of increasing the powers of the State.

but there's a difference between publically (tax-payer owned) and privately owned property. a manager of a public property (school principal, museum conservator etc.) who deems something is amiss, has the freedom to call the authorities to do what needs to be done to ensure the safety of all within the building or space.

however, private property is a different matter. anyone who, without my permission, sets foot on my property without a rock solid, valid search warrant may be staring down the business end of my wrath.

...kin yuh heer thuh banjos playin'?...

Mention of Baltovich and Morin, I might also add Truscott.

I would not want to bet money on the innocence of all three. Especially Truscott.

For all the fools arguing that the SCC was correct on this one, lets play a game of "what if". What if instead of carrying cocaine and heroin, the guy at the calgary greyhound had a bomb. And what if he planned on going to Vancouver on a greyhound, and then blowing up the Vancouver bus station. A police dog sniffs the bag and alerts the officers, but the police can't force the guy to open it because they know it'd be a violation of his privacy. End result? He gets on the bus, and when the bus pulls into the bus station, he detonates his bomb killing everyone on the bus and several dozen bystanders as well. Still agree with the SCC ruling?

I love the ridiculous hysteria about "drug pushers". It was a kid with a little bit of weed.

Yes manager of a public place can have the authorities check things out if he thinks something is amiss, but the authourities cannot then go wandering around checking whatever they want willy-nilly without first establishing cause, which is exactly what they did in Sarnia.

pete, pull your head out, its effecting your ability to reason

"It was a kid with a little bit of weed."

Matt, what if it had been a kid with several handguns and a semi-automatic assault rifle? Would it be okay then?

It is not the police who randomly enter schools and execute searches. Most school drug searches, are requested by the school authorities. After this ruling the schools can still request searches, but now they have to first obtain warrants from (mostly) liberal judges. I would think there will be fewer school searches after this ruling and, likely, more drugs in the schools.

I usually rail against the controversial rulings from the bad Santa suits, but they may have this one right. However, Parliament could also act to restore the ability of school authorities to call in random searches. If you disagree with this ruling, write your MP.

Michael, you apparently have no idea about what rights are.

Skip wrote, "While they are public schools, schools are not public places." Skip, you're dead wrong on that count.

matt writes, "It was a kid with a little bit of weed". I don't think you're correct on that one. Apparently, the amount of drugs was enough to indicate trafficking.

I've taught over a 1000 kids in my career: I can pretty well guarantee that this kid was not an asset to the school. What he was doing was injurious to both himself and others—not just physically. It would affect the moral tone of the school as well—don't laugh, matt: what he did was against the law. And I'll bet this kid wasn't exactly concentrating on his studies or behaving very well in class.

I suggest it's the extreme libertarians here who don't get it.

I suggest it's more subtle than that, Lookout. For example, say the school district had a policy of using a private investigator firm to conduct investigations and surveillance in the name of identifying and eliminating the sorts of elements that legitimately distract from providing an effective and relatively secure learning environment for humans of that age. I would have less problem with that than I have with the notion of the school district calling in our state police force to conduct a planned and organized search without a warrant.

We delegate incredible powers to our state police forces, and with good reason, yet it is a mistake to let such power be wielded without appropriate checks and balances. As much as you see the limitations to what I consider to be these necessary constraints, Lookout, from your perspective in the trenches, which I do think I appreciate, it remains the case that I don't think that's a good enough reason to throw the system of checks and balances out the window.

If our state police are going to conduct a planned, organized search, then I think they should have to check with our state judiciary, in order to obtain the balance that we impart to the system in the name of a search warrant.

skip you're right. I have no idea what rights are. Please forgive me - I was born before PET's Charter gave Canadians "rights".

I have to disagree with that, vitruvius. I don't believe that drug-sniffing dogs finding the people with the illegal/banned objects/substances is an infringement of anybody's rights. The fact is, these substances are illegal, and you shouldn't have any expectation of safety if you choose to be stupid enough to transport them in a backpack. If the cops single someone out because they look like they might be trouble, that's one thing. But a dog smelling it? Forget it. Dogs sniff. If you're carrying a concealed weapon, and an officer happens to catch a glimpse of it when you move the wrong way, are you going to argue that he invaded your privacy by looking at you?

Vitruvius, is a search warrant the only method of balance in the case of a school?

If the principal comes to realize a locker search is needed "today" (and it often happens that way)he calls the police onto the school grounds. I'm trying to imagine how well that would work if you had to wait for a search warrant.

If you've got an overzealous principal, the checks and balances rest in the hands of the parents who will most certainly complain to the school board, who in turn will pressure the principal to back off or even reassign him or her.

To me that allows parents and schools the authority they need to serve their roles responsibly without having to rely on the courts for accountability.

Vitruvius, I hear you, and I do understand your point.

However, the constant conferring of non-rights—a student’s apparent right to conceal illegal substances at school—which break down society and aggrandize the rule breaker, at the expense of the rest of us, is, IMO, wrong.

I don’t believe the judges—6 of 9—HAD to make the decision they did (of course not, there were three dissents). The protocols of the court system are rigidly set so judges can efficiently and effectively—well, that’s a debatable point!—get their work done. And they’ll make sure to keep it that way.

On the other hand, a judgement like this is a horrendous handicap to teachers being able to do their jobs. It empowers those who would undermine the very purpose of an educational institution. (And, believe me, if you worked in close quarters with some of the thuggish saboteurs teachers have to deal with, I think you might see the situation differently.) This judgement puts all of us in schools at risk. Why bother with cameras at the doors, re strangers entering, and wearing “Visitor” nametags, and signing in, and only allowing kids out of the classroom in twos, and . . . and all the other precautions boards are taking, when the kids, themselves, are free, apparently, to break the law by carrying illegal substances in their backpacks, while the authorities, who are responsible for the safety of those in their charge, are not allowed to assertively pursue their suspicions? Even worse is the EROSION OF THE AUTHORITY OF EDUCATORS: I can tell you, the kids smell it like a shark smells blood. This judgement fills me with despair and a deep sense of foreboding.

Ok, consider this case. Say we had a socially agreed upon policy that had a police officer or two stroll through the school once or twice a day in the name of community relationships (sounds like a good idea to me). Say some immature kid exposed himself to a violation of the law in front of said officers, with or without dog. Well, sorry kid, they don't need a warrant to call you out on that. And to the degree that there are problematic elements within the environment, said officers are in a position to observe, deduce, and escalate, according to the rules.

The limitation that I consider significant has to do with the notion of a planned and organized specific operational search by the most powerful force we deploy within our society. That's supposed to be based on a standard of cause, as delimited by a search warrant. That's what needs checks and balances, not simply officers of the law going about doing their normative duty.

Because it isn't the officers of the law going about their normative duty that become a problem if we don't insist upon these due process methodologies being respected, it those officials who would corrupt their duty in the name of fraudlent advantage that we construct these defenses against.

I think they are important defenses.

Vitruvious et al:

Do you agree/disagree that schools have the right to have metal detectors at their entrances?

If a car is weaving a lot but within its lane of travel do the cops have the right to pull it over?

Do cops have the authority to examine with a magnifying glass a fingerprint on a public facilities handrail?

As I understand the judgement all of the above would be illegal according to the SCC.

I would leave the question of schools and metal detectors up to the responsibility of the schools. The police should have the ability to stop and investigate any operator of a lethal mass running at speed upon a public street if the operator's observable behaviour appears bad enough; it's a judgment call. The police should be able to examine a fingerprint on state property without a warrant, on private property they need a warrant. Of course, Gord, that's just my opinion, I can't speak for the SCC ;-)

I failed to stitch that last comment back up into the thread appropriately, so please let me add: I think that if our police are going to conduct a planned, organized search, even in a public space, then they should have to get a warrant for it. Unchecked police searches (not that that's necessarily what's happening here, but as a matter of principle) are something that are characteristic of the behaviours of the kind of states that we don't want to live in.

Leftist governments which we've had for a long time before a constrained minority conservative government have appointed leftist judges to the bench (two at one go to get gay marriage whisked through).

In the (in)justice system, the influence of the left is to hem in and even criminalize law-abiding citizens (speech laws, gun registration)while giving real criminal activity the widest leeway under the guise of protecting citizen rights.

Eventually, you get the bizarre situation well advanced in the EU where actually burning cars or other vandalism is tolerated in the sense of rarely if ever prosecuted while individuals who SPEAK of the crimes in detail including the fact that one identifiable racial and religious group is committing them are the ones who get hauled off to face the full extent of the law for fomenting "hate" or "phobias". Anywhere you see the suffix "phobia" it's really expressing an allergy to the truth.

The interim result is a building sense by law abiding citizens that their leaders and civil bureaucracy are not only protecting their rights, property or even lives adequately but are targeting them instead of the criminal and ideologic threat they justifiably fear.

The end result is anyone's guess, but presumably it won't be a good one as desperate people take desperate measures, even with a citizenry almost fully disarmed in Canada and Europe, one of the first moves of any totalitarian regime.

Vit:

Unchecked police searches should not be allowed. But in all of the above questions I posed - save the metal detector - and the dog sniffing dope cases these were searches where there was observable evidence in the public domain - either visible or sniffable. Thus, in all cases the police would be correct in conducting a search.

I bring up the magnifying glass because, according to some sources (colby cosh et al), one of the arguments some on the SCC were making was that the dog's nose was better than a human's nose and was thus an unreasonable way to collect evidence. A magnifying glass provides similar super-human technology and therefore by the above logic, it too should be inadmissable.

In the domain of a school - the school has the duty to protect the students from other students. They thus have the right to examine anything that is brought into the school either on a regular mandatory basis like a doorway metal detector that emits rays into a backpack or via random searches as deemed necessary. If they wish to use the RCMP or some other private investigator to conduct the search, that is their perogative. The students have the choice to not bring contraband/weapons onto school property. Like crossing a borderpoint, going into a school entails the surredner of some of your rights to search and siezure (ever had a teacher take away your chewing gum?).

Gord Tulk, I entirely agree with you. (kivi too)

You wrote, “Like crossing a borderpoint, going into a school entails the surrender of some of your rights to search and seizure.”

Judge LeBel of the SCC has other ideas. I quoted him in my post in Reader Tips @ 8:16 this morning: he says, "Students are entitled to privacy in school . . . entering a school does not amount to crossing the border." I said he’s an idiot.

I also wrote, “And, yes, even though LeBel J. is too dense to discern this, when a student goes into a school, he or she has, indeed, ‘cross[ed] the border’ between ‘outside’ and a learning environment, where the first requirement is that the teacher be able to establish and maintain authority.”

Many schools are becoming wild and dangerous places. I think that those who don't spend time in them might be thinking back to the days when schools were civilized and safe. Things have drastically changed and this dunder-headed judgement will only make matters worse—that is, worse for the responsible, law abiding school inhabitants, and better for those who wish to wreak havoc.

Understood, Gord, yet how far do we go? See, sniff, infrared, x-ray, cameras everywhere, identification cards, database mining, report your neighbour, how far do we want to go? What kind of society do we want to live in? One where every transgression of a bazillion self-contradictory regulations is charged upon each citizen by machines?

The key to an effective law and order system is a combination of known rules, yes, but also of professional balance in their application. That balance comes both from the accumulated experience and gained wisdom of professionals in their fields, and from the methodological due process procedures that we as a society have deployed to try to keep our law and order system from going bad.

This is going to sound cheap, Lookout, and I apologize, as I said before I appreciate the problem you are working with, yet I don't think the solution to the problem is to throw the police at it. The solution to the problem lies elsewhere.

It's one thing to call an emergency, it's something else to change the law so that everything is an emergency. Messy as the SCC decision was, I think that the decision tips on the side of good in the long term, even though it implies limitations in the short term.

Vit:

"Professional balance" is the key.

Guiliani's "broken glass" approach would be seen as extreme in a low-crime place like say, Hanna, but in the fetid criminal swamp that was New York at the time it was the proper thing - the professional thing - to do. Once the atmosphere of peace and security is restored, the general public assumes much of the enforcement duties needed and the amount needed is greatly reduced (same thing is happening in Iraq currently BTW).

If the cops were dog-sniffing every handbag at the Red Deer Bay there would be a hue and cry that would send the cops running with their tails between their legs (literally, I suppose). The key to ensuring professional balance is IMO political balance - our political commanders should be politcally accountable to some degree -subject to an electoral process or some periodical public review as exists in the US. Were that in place and were it local enough we would see such big brother "enforcement" read tax-collection technologies as photo-radar and stoplight cameras disappear.

As for the proliferation of technological snooping - it has just replaced the snooping of our idle small-town neighbours from years gone by - it was ever thus. Law-abiding people in public places have nothing to fear.

More worrying to me is how poorly our property rights are protected. Constitutionally-speaking, here in CDA we have none whatsoever. (ID cards and database-mining fall somewhere into this category IMO)

PS - I must say I agree wholeheartedly with Kivi's post above. He/she makes his points well.

Well Gord, and Lookout, and Kivi, y'all, I don't have a problem with the items you highlight. I agree with many points you raise. As I've mentioned before, I don't come here to argue, I come here to think, and y'all have helped me think about the subtleties of this case. I hope I've helped you think about them too.

Because I must note that I think that one of the reasons we are talking about this case is the variances in our consideration of the degree to which we think it will be effective at the margin in practice, v. dangerous as precedent in the future, and that's at best a tough call in this case (otherwise we wouldn't be talking about it). Under those circumstances, it is good, I think, to have discussions like this.

Hear, hear Vit.

Do you think the level of conversation was as good in the SCC? The argument put forth by some on the SCC that odour-sniffing was an invasion of privacy makes me wonder as does the qualifying of a dog greater sense of smell being an excessive form of evidence gathering. Arguments like this smack of someone trying to fit their judgement into a pre-ordained ideology.

Yes, don't they just, all of us.

Wow. Going to sleep sure cost one a lot of context...

Several points in all of the above since I last posted on this.

Lookout: re: public schools/public places. People get confused as to what a "public place" is - its not simply a place owned by the public, its a place in which the public has normally unfettered access. A school is not such a place. A general member of the public cannot wander at will about the interior of a school, and may not even do so on the grounds.

Gord Tulk: "In the domain of a school - the school has the duty to protect the students from other students. They thus have the right to examine anything that is brought into the school either on a regular mandatory basis like a doorway metal detector that emits rays into a backpack or via random searches as deemed necessary. If they wish to use the RCMP or some other private investigator to conduct the search, that is their perogative. The students have the choice to not bring contraband/weapons onto school property. Like crossing a borderpoint, going into a school entails the surredner of some of your rights to search and siezure (ever had a teacher take away your chewing gum?)."

And the courts have increasingly said no, that is not the case. The situation is analogous to stores attempting to demand access to cases and backpacks when you are shopping. Many of these so-called "waivers of right" have not held up. No parent signs a waiver suspending their kid's rights when they enroll them in school. The courts are holding that, if you are going to assume that children have most of the rights of adults, then you can't cherry pick most of those rights. For a very long time, children were essentially deemed property of their parents. That is no longer the case, and the SCC decision is a natural outcome of that societal change.

Lookout: I hear your concerns with regard to criminal students loud and clear. While I no longer inhabit a school (Michael, I graduated university before PET was even elected), I do live across from a public school (and have for 30 years), and am on the walking route for a high school. I see daily intolerable behaviour, but for the Youth Criminal Justice Act, would send kids to jail.

The YCJA is where this all breaks down. Canadian society has to decide whether children are to be accorded the ordinary rights of mature citizens or not, and, if so, then they must, with reasonable accommodation for issues of maturity, bear the brunt of responsibility that goes with those rights. In my view, the SCC has appropriately made the right decision, on the general case of student's rights based on these specific cases. The SCC can't make policy decisions on behalf of Parliament. That the CYJA puts society at odds with individual rights is Parliaments problem, not the SCC's.

A warrant would have been likely very easy to obtain in this case. It is possible that a judge would not have granted one for a broad search of all, but very likely would have for a more clearly defined search of some.

Otherwise, the search becomes a fishing expedition search for undefined but presumed criminality in specific group of a general population. In the adult world, it is no different than the manager of Canadian Tire calling the police on the suspicion that perhaps someone in the store may have pilfered goods, and the store being sealed while everyone's belonging, pockets, purses were being searched for possible stolen or illegal goods. You wouldn't stand for it, neither should your kids.

It is somewhat naive to think that drug dealing in school is a one-way street, that only the students pushing are the criminals here. The pushers are there because the buyers are there. Parents have to get it in their heads that their kids as users are criminals too, not victims. As Lookout has observed, most of theses kids know exactly what they are doing. They also know there are no consequences to them. That has to change, otherwise you have no solution to the problem, and the real lesson kids are learning is the crime does pay.

The SCC has, obliquely, affirmed that you can't disabuse the rights of individuals for the expedience of authority and under the guise of moral justice. That is a valid decision. Now, society has to deal with the problem face up- how to hold their children accountable for the crimes they commit.

Another point comes to mind in regard to the drug sniffing dog. Presently, in the west, supreme courts are grappling with the issue of state use of technology that heretofore did not exist that will allow state law enforcement to breach the sanctity of personal spaces such as dwelling places surreptitiously and without knowledge or impact on the individual. Advanced FLIR cameras, radio monitors, internet snooping, and a wide range of technologies are replacing the old knock on the door. The wiretap issue of old was the tip of the iceberg in these issues, and it was determined then that a warrant was required in order to provide the appropriate oversight of the intrusion. The sniffing dog (not to be confused with the sniveling Kyoto) is, in the SCC's view just such a "technological" example. Arguably simplistic, and will soon be replaced with hard technology, but the issue of clandestine inspection remains. These are tough decisions. It is not surprising the court is split. Society will walk a very fine line in the future over these matters, and the rights of individuals (of any age) will come to have even deeper import than they do now.

Well Skip - it sounds like you are o.k. with 9 non-elected/life-appointed judges being the ultimate decision makers/interpreters/makers of law in Canada.

People within a bureaucracy that they know is rotten have three alternatives - accept/justify it, adapt to it and do whatever it takes to get that promotion (rot begets rot), or quit and find a real job. Upwardly mobile people will never do the latter, so on and on it goes. Unfortunately the education system is far to full of administrators who are in the second category - to the point where good teachers have either left, retired early, and worse - don't even aspire to get into teaching.

I hope the Sarnia principal will do what has been "deemed to be proper" like get a search warrant, blah, blah, blah and the put this issue to the test again with a sniffer dog. Probably the only thing that would really work is to put a proposal before the SCC for approval ahead of the fact, but then this would also be impossible given the system we live under.
Sad. Sad. Sad.

I am not o.k. with the SCC being the sole determiner/interpreter/maker of Canadian law (the latter being something they have granted to themselves), but unfortunately there is no political will to do anything about it. By using the notwithstanding clause, the AB gov't could probably ignore the SCC court overturning the Greyhound Bus issue, go with the conviction in the provincial court, and have this stand in AB. Preventing this, of course, is a huge lack of will within the AB gov't.

I agree with Vitruvius’s appreciation for our exchange of ideas. It’s such a pleasure to have a back and forth with people who care about ideas! That said, with respect, I still quite disagree with both Vitruvius and Skip.

Gord Tulk mentions the “broken window” policy in NYC which was a huge success: use the existing law to come down heavily on small crimes—because they’re the start of a progression to larger crimes. A cruel irony here is that the Charter chill in our schools has kept the vast majority of administrators—and teachers, who know admin. and parents will often not support them—paralysed re dealing decisively with unacceptable behaviour. So, we’ve had a serious escalation of the most egregious actions on the part of a critical mass of miscreants.

Skip, schools ARE public spaces: saying that people can’t do just anything they want there is true. But that does not mean they aren’t public spaces. (E.g., It’s against the law to ride a bike on a sidewalk: does that mean sidewalks are not public spaces?) In the schools in my jurisdiction, there are signs on every door which say, in effect, that no one is to enter if their purpose is not in accordance with the Education Act. Of course, even if not, the person is free to enter. If they’re caught not complying is another matter.

And that brings me to the matter of a student bringing drugs, for the purpose of trafficking, onto school property—crossing that border, a fact Gord Tulk and I find easy to understand—and we’re not even Supreme Court judges! That student’s behaviour is neither in compliance with the Education Act, nor is it legal. Therefore, I believe the principal was fully within his rights to call in the police. Vitruvius, illegal behaviour IS a matter for the police—not school administrators. And, when there are HUNDREDS of students, who know full well that having drugs in their backpacks is against the rules, using sniffer dogs is an efficient and, under the circumstances, REASONABLE way to do a search. No one opened backpacks. The assumption was that drugs were on school property and dogs trained to discover drugs—nothing else—were brought in. And drugs were found.

And, the Canadian Tire analogy doesn’t float—not by a long shot. Sorry, Skip. Canadian Tire is a store, a private enterprise. A school is a public institution. Administrators and teachers have a custodial relationship, outlined in the Education Act, with the minors in their charge. The adults are expected to establish and maintain AUTHORITY. This is in no way analogous to the relationship between shoppers and the staff in a store. This SCC decision has just put another nail in the coffin of adult authority in our schools: another layer of Charter chill. As I said, the kids smell it like sharks smell blood.

I predict that nothing good will come of the unravelling of adult authority in our schools.

A last point here: let’s look at who made this—to me—ludicrous decision: a majority of the mainly Liberal appointed overlords/ladies who comprise our lefty, activist, Gnostic—see Chief Justice, Beverley MacLachlin’s description, in New Zealand, of their lord and ladyships’ extra sensory perception outside the actual statutes they’re expected to adhere to—SCC. This court is full of ideologues who have, IMO, abused their powers over and over in order to promote a laissez faire society, where, as kivi has pointed out, not following the rules—or even the LAW!—is rewarded. I do not trust these people.

I haven’t changed my mind at all: by this decision, the court has brought itself into disrepute—again—and has proven that “the law is an ass”.

Maybe I'm talking to no one, but: an important function of the SCC is a teaching one. Many people--mistakenly--believe that if the SCC makes a decision it automatically has moral validity. (In the "old days", when the rule of law, v PC relativism, held sway, this was often the case.)

So, it would greatly benefit society as a whole, and the individuals within it, if the SCC would make some attempt to emphasize and reward RESPONSIBILITY, rather than rights. Our kids deserve it and so do the rest of us.

Believe me, modern day minors need no more reminders of their rights: their world is saturated with this one-sided, and now dangerous, dogma.

How about some emphasis on responsibility? How about it, SCC?