In 1974 Parliament enacted Part IV.1 [now Part VI] of the Criminal Code known as the Protection of Privacy Act. 1 The legislation was a response to wiretapping by the police that was unsupervised by Parliament or the judiciary. 2 The exclusionary rule was contained in s. 178.16(1) of the Act ...
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In an important ruling released on March 27, 2013,  the Supreme Court of Canada held that text messages are private communications that are protected by Part VI of the Criminal Code. In a case reported as R. v. Telus Communications Co., 2013 SCC 16 the police wanted to seize text ...
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In an important judgment released on January 17, 2014, the Supreme Court of Canada clarified the constitutional requirements of police searches conducted to ensure the safety of the police or the public. In R. v. MacDonald, 2014 SCC 3 two police officers had gone to the appellant's Halifax condo as ...
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The four defendants in a wiretap case I have before Justice Brian R. Burrows in the Court of Queen's Bench, at Edmonton, brought evidence suppression motions regarding historic text messages seized by the police from a telephone service provider. The Crown Attorneys brought counter applications for declarations that the defendants' ...
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In 1979 five men and a woman were charged with conspiracy to traffic marijuana in Edmonton, Alberta. Wiretap evidence was new and central to the state’s case. I had been practicing in Alberta for only two years. The closest I had come to a wiretap was watching Francis Ford Coppola’s ...
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On The Wire is a forum for opinion about the Charter of Rights and the criminal law with an emphasis on privacy issues. Although I am a wiretap lawyer my practice is not restricted to wiretap cases. I am first a criminal lawyer. My practice and experience include other types ...
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