Friday, July 24, 2009

COMMISSIONER’S COMMENTS ON PHASE ONE REPORT OF BRAIDWOOD INQUIRY INTO TASER USE IN BRITISH COLUMBIA July 23, 2009.

Thomas R. Braidwood, QC, Commissions of Inquiry

COMMISSIONER’S COMMENTS ON PHASE ONE REPORT OF BRAIDWOOD INQUIRY
INTO TASER USE IN BRITISH COLUMBIA
July 23, 2009
VANCOUVER – Retired British Columbia Appeal Court Justice Thomas R. Braidwood, QC, has
made 19 recommendations to the provincial government regarding the appropriate use of
conducted energy weapons (tasers) by law enforcement agencies in the province.
Speaking at a media conference in Vancouver today following the tabling in the B.C. Legislature
of the report of the first phase of the Braidwood Inquiry into taser use in B.C., Mr. Braidwood
said his report “bluntly states” that the provincial government has abdicated its responsibility to
establish province-wide standards for the use of tasers.
“In my view, it is the province’s responsibility to set the rules about conducted energy weapon
use and officer training. It is the duty of law enforcement agencies to train their officers and
deploy the weapon in accordance with those policies,” he said.
The centrepiece of the report is that government should authorize policing agencies to continue
to use conducted energy weapons, but the threshold for use should be significantly revised from
“active resistance” to the much higher standard of “causing bodily harm.”
While Mr. Braidwood was specifically directed to exclude the RCMP from the first phase of the
inquiry because the provincial government does not have jurisdiction over the force, he said
today that his recommendations should also apply to the RCMP as a pre-condition for the B.C.
government entering into new policing agreements with the RCMP in 2012.
“Seventy per cent of British Columbians live in communities policed by the RCMP. If the
government accepts and implements my recommendations, it would be incongruous that the
recommendations not apply in most areas of the province,” he said.
Mr. Braidwood was appointed in February 2008 by former B.C. Attorney General Wally Oppal to
head two commissions of inquiry. The first was a “study” commission into the use of tasers in
B.C. by police forces other than the RCMP. The second phase is a “hearing and study”
commission into the death of Polish immigrant Robert Dziekanski at Vancouver International
Airport in October 2007.
The report tabled today deals only with the first phase of the inquiry. A report into the second
phase is expected to be delivered to the provincial government early next year.
Inquiry website: http://www.braidwoodinquiry.ca/
-30-
For more information, please contact:
Chris Freimond: 604-990-1378 or 778-840-2428 (cell)
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Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Alberta's electronic health record system compromisesd

not good


The Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner has been notified by Alberta Health Services that a virus was present on the Alberta Health Services network in Edmonton. The virus impacted the network and Netcare, Alberta’s electronic health record, before it was discovered and removed.

The virus is a new variant of a Trojan horse program called coreflood and is designed to steal data from an infected computer and send it to a server controlled by a hacker. Coreflood captures passwords and data the user of the computer accesses. The virus was active from May 15 to 29 before it was detected and removed.

AHS identified two groups who are potentially at risk. Patients whose health information was accessed in Netcare through an infected computer and employees who accessed personal banking and email accounts from work using an infected computer. AHS is sending letters to the 11,582 patients whose information may have been exposed and has notified all affected employees.

Commissioner Frank Work says this does not necessarily mean Netcare itself has been infected by the virus; rather the virus may have captured patient data accessed through Netcare from an infected computer and sent it to an external party. “While it appears the risk to patients is low, viruses don’t discriminate and this is an important message to everyone about the need to run up to date anti virus software”, says the Commissioner.

The Commissioner’s office is investigating. In the meantime Work is expecting a full forensic report from Alberta Health Services on how this happened and what steps will be taken to prevent future breaches. Work says “AHS responded quickly when the virus was detected and that steps have been taken to notify users and patients with advice on what they should do to protect personal and health information”.

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Tuesday, July 21, 2009

data leaks on a bank network not good!

Coast Capital's Philippe Sarfati said Tuesday that a letter would be sent out to all the affected clients.Coast Capital's Philippe Sarfati said Tuesday that a letter would be sent out to all the affected clients. (CBC)

An employee at Coast Capital Savings inadvertently emailed a list of the insurance claims of 464 clients to about 75 Metro Vancouver media outlets.

The email attachment included names, postal codes and the amounts of property insurance claims, but no social insurance numbers, addresses or account numbers.

A letter would be sent out to all the affected clients, said Philippe Sarfati, Coast Capital's chief risk officer.

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Monday, July 20, 2009

why i do not like CSIS at all! p1!

http://pcneedtogo.blogspot.com/2009/07/sirc-completes-its-review-of-matter-of.html
http://www.sirc-csars.gc.ca/opbapb/2008-05/index-eng.html
http://www.sirc-csars.gc.ca/pdfs/cm_arar_bgv1-eng.pdf..
http://www.sirc-csars.gc.ca/pdfs/cm_arar_bgv2-eng.pdf
http://www.sirc-csars.gc.ca/pdfs/cm_arar_rec-eng.pdf

Controversies

CSIS has at times come under criticism, such as in the apparent bungling of the investigation into the 1985 Air India bombing. The Commission of Inquiry into the Investigation of the Bombing of Air India Flight 182, headed by Mr. Justice John Major, is underway. Two Canadian courts have publicly criticized CSIS for destroying wiretap evidence. One court impressed upon the importance of wiretap evidence from CSIS in establishing guilt. The second focused on its exculpatory value.

From 1988 to 1994, CSIS mole Grant Bristow infiltrated the Canadian white-supremacist movement; when the story became public knowledge, the press aired concerns that he had not only been one of the founders of the Heritage Front group, but that he had also channelled CSIS funding to this group.[citation needed]

In 1999, classified documents were stolen from the car of a CSIS employee who was attending a Toronto Maple Leafs hockey game. The Security Intelligence Review Committee reportedly investigated this incident.[8][9]

Rather than playing a purely domestic role, the Service has been "noticeably altered" to allow it to play a part in Canada's role in the invasion of Afghanistan, as well as the Iraq War.[10]

On September 18, 2006, the Arar Commission absolved CSIS of any involvement in the extraordinary rendition by the United States of a Canadian citizen, Maher Arar. The Commission found that U.S. authorities sent Arar to Jordan and then Syria (his country of birth) based on incorrect information which had been provided by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) to the U.S. government. Arar was held by the Syrians for one year and has claimed he was tortured. The sole criticism of CSIS levelled by the Commission was that the agency should do more to vet information provided by regimes which practice torture.


Air India Flight 182


CSIS connection

During an interview with Bagri on 28 October 2000, RCMP agents describe Surjan Singh Gill as an agent for CSIS saying the reason that he resigned from the Babbar Khalsa was because his CSIS handlers told him to pull out.[31]

After the subsequent failure of CSIS to stop the bombing of Flight 182, the head of CSIS was replaced by Reid Morden. In an interview for CBC Television's news program, The National, Morden claims that CSIS "dropped the ball" in its handling of the case. A Security Intelligence Review Committee cleared CSIS of any wrongdoing. However, that report remains secret to this day. The Canadian government continues to insist that there was no mole involved.



estroyed evidence

In his verdict Justice Josephson cited "unacceptable negligence" by CSIS when hundreds of wiretaps of the suspects were destroyed. Of the 210 wiretaps that were recorded during the months before and after the bombing, 156 were erased. These tapes continued to be erased even after the terrorists had become the primary suspects in the bombing.

CSIS claims the wiretaps contained no relevant information but a memo from the RCMP states that "There is a strong likelihood that had CSIS retained the tapes between March and August 1985, that a successful prosecution of at least some of principals in both bombings could have been undertaken."[28]

On 4 June 1985, CSIS agents Larry Lowe and Lynn McAdams trailed Talwinder Singh Parmar and Inderjit Singh Reyat to Vancouver Island. The agents reported to the RCMP that they had heard a noise like a "loud gunshot" in the woods. Later that month Flight 182 was bombed. After the bombing the RCMP went to the site and found remains of an electrical blasting cap.[27]

The suspects in the bombing were apparently aware that they were under surveillance, because they used pay phones and talked in code. Translator's notes of the wiretaps records this exchange between Talwinder Parmar and a follower named Hardial Singh Johal on the same day the tickets were purchased on 20 June 1985.
Parmar: Did he write the story?
Johal: No he didn't.
Parmar: Do that work first.[29]

After this call a man called the CP Air and booked the tickets and left Johal's number. Shortly afterwards, Johal called Parmar and asked him if he "can come over and read the story he asked for". Parmar said he would be there shortly.

This conversation appears to be an order from Parmar to book the tickets used to bomb the planes. Because the original wiretaps were erased by CSIS, they were inadmissible as evidence in court.

'A Canadian tragedy'

Twenty years after the downing of Air India Flight 182, families gathered in Ahakista, Ireland, to grieve. Governor General Adrienne Clarkson, on the advice of Prime Minister Paul Martin declared the anniversary a national day of mourning. During the anniversary observances, Martin said that the bombing was a Canadian problem, not a foreign problem, saying: "Make no mistake: The flight may have been Air India's, it may have taken place off the coast of Ireland, but this is a Canadian tragedy."[22]

In May 2007, pollster Angus Reid released the results of public opinion polling of whether Canadians viewed the bombing as a Canadian or Indian tragedy and who they blamed for it. Forty-eight per cent of respondents regarded the Air India bombing as a Canadian tragedy, while 22 per cent of Canadians thought of the terrorist attack as a mostly Indian affair. Thirty-four per cent of respondents thought both the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) and airport security personnel deserved a great deal of the blame for the 1985 Air India bombing. In addition, 27 per cent of respondents believed the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) were largely to blame, while 18 percent mentioned Transport Canada.[23]




External links








Maher Arar




Project A-O Canada and the events leading up to Arar's rendition

After he had moved back to Ottawa, Arar had a meeting with Abdullah Almalki on October 12, 2001. Almalki, an Ottawa engineer, was also born in Syria and had moved to Canada in the same year as Arar. They met at the Mango Café, a popular shawarma restaurant in a strip mall and talked about doctors and bought a print cartridge together.[13]

At the time their movements were under close scrutiny by at least three police surveillance teams.[13] The surveillance was prompted by Project A-O Canada, a Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP)-led terrorism investigation team based in Ottawa and a subdivision of Project O Canada which was based in Toronto. Project O Canada was created by the RCMP when the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) delegated responsibility for its national security investigation concerning Abdullah Almalki to the RCMP. CSIS had been monitoring Almalki at least since 1998 with respect to his relationship with Ahmed Said Khadr, an Egyptian-born Canadian and alleged senior associate of Osama bin Laden. CSIS was also concerned with Almalki's electronic components export business that he operated with his wife. Almalki, however, was purely a person of interest and was not, in fact, the target of the investigation. Nonetheless, Almalki's meeting with Arar appears to have prompted a wider investigation, with Arar also becoming a "person of interest."[13]

On October 7, 2002, FBI agent Robert Fuller went to Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan and showed Canadian teenager Omar Khadr a black-and-white photograph of Arar obtained from the FBI office in Massachusetts, and demanded to know if he recognised him. Khadr initially stated that he did not recognise Arar, but when further pressured by Fuller, confessed he had seen him at a Kabul safehouse run by Abu Musab al-Suri or Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. This testimony given by Fuller is contradicted by the fact that during the period indicated by Khadr in Fuller's testimony, Maher Arar was known to be in Canada, under surveillance by the RCMP. [14][15][16][17]

Arrested in 2002, Arward Al-Bousha gave up the name of Arar as a possible militant, after he himself had been fingered in a confession given by Abdullah Almalki allegedly to stop his own torture.[18][19]

[edit] Arar's rendition

On September 26, 2002, during a stopover in New York City en route from a family vacation in Tunisia to Montreal, Arar was detained by the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS). The INS was acting upon information supplied by the RCMP.[20] When it became clear he was going to be deported, Arar requested he be deported to Canada; though he had not visited Syria since his move to Canada, he retained Syrian citizenship as Syria does not permit the renunciation of citizenship. Canadian (initially) and United States officials have labelled his transfer to Syria as a deportation, but critics have called the removal an example of rendition for torture by proxy, as the Syrian government is infamous for its torture of detainees. Despite the recent public rhetoric, at the time of Arar's deportation, Syria was working closely with the United States government in their "War on Terror". In November 2003, Cofer Black, then counterterrorism coordinator at the US State Department and former director of counterterrorism at the CIA, was quoted as saying "The Syrian government has provided some very useful assistance on al Qaeda in the past." [21] In September 2002, the George W. Bush administration opposed the enactment of the "Syria Accountability Act" citing effectiveness of current sanctions and the ongoing diplomacy in the region. In addition, the administration noted the cooperation and support by Syria in fighting al-Qaida as a reason for its opposition to the "Syria Accountability Act".[22]





Initial media controversy

Arar's case reached new heights of controversy after reporter Juliet O'Neill wrote an article in the Ottawa Citizen on November 8, 2003, containing information leaked to her from an unknown security source, possibly within the RCMP. The secret documents provided by her source suggested Arar was a trained member of an Al Qaeda terrorist cell. The RCMP later raided O'Neill's house pursuant to sealed search warrants it had obtained to investigate the leak.[33] The raid was widely denounced in the media.[who?]

In November 2004, Ontario Superior Court Judge Lynn Ratushny ruled that the sealing of the search warrants was unacceptable, although Justice of the Peace Richard Sculthorpe had given approval after the RCMP invoked the Security of Information Act. Justice Ratushny stated that the sealing of the search violated guarantees of a free press, freedom of expression and the public's right to an open court system. She ordered that a redacted copy be released to the public.[34] All materials that were seized were subsequently ordered returned to O'Neill after Ontario Superior Court Judge Ratushny struck down Section 4 of the Security of Information Act[35], ruling that it was "unconstitutionally vague" and broad[36] and an infringement of freedom of expression. In May 2008, the RCMP closed the investigation, labeled Operation Soya, without concluding who leaked the false information. [37]

[edit] Garvie Report

On September 25, 2004, the results of an internal RCMP investigation by RCMP Chief Superintendent Brian Garvie were published. Though the version released to the public was censored, the Garvie Report documented several instances of impropriety by the RCMP in the Arar case. Among its revelations were that the RCMP was responsible for giving American authorities sensitive information on Arar with no attached provisos about how this information might be used. Also, Richard Roy, the RCMP liaison officer with the Department of Foreign Affairs, may have known of the plan of removing Arar to Syria but did not contact his supervisors. Additionally, Deputy RCMP Commissioner Garry Loeppky lobbied hard, in the spring of 2003, to convince his government (then led by Liberal Prime Minister Jean Chrétien) not to claim in a letter to Syria, that it "had no evidence Arar was involved in any terrorist activities" because Arar "remained a person of great interest."

In response to the Garvie Report, Arar said that the report was "just the starting point to find out the truth about what happened to me" and that it "exposes the fact that the government was misleading the public when they said Canada had nothing to do with sending me to Syria."

[edit] Canadian Commission of Inquiry

On February 5, 2004, the Canadian government established the "Commission Of Inquiry Into The Actions of Canadian Officials In Relation to Maher Arar" to investigate and report on the actions of Canadian officials. The United States refused to participate in the inquiry and, until January 2007, refused to share its own evidence with Canadian officials.

On June 14, 2005, Franco Pillarella, Canadian ambassador to Syria at the time of Arar's removal, said that at the time he had no reason to believe Arar had been badly treated, and in general had no reason to conclusively believe that Syria engaged in routine torture. These statements prompted widespread incredulity in the Canadian media, and a former Canadian UN ambassador responded to Pillarella asserting that Syria's human rights abuses were well known and well documented by many sources.

On September 14, 2005, the O'Connor commission concluded public hearings after testimony from 85 witnesses. Maher Arar did not testify before the commission.[6] The U.S. ambassador at the time of the incident, Paul Cellucci, refused to testify.

On October 27, 2005, Professor Stephen Toope, a fact-finder appointed by the Arar inquiry released a report saying that he believed Arar was tortured in Syria. He said that Arar had recovered well physically but was still suffering from psychological problems caused by his mistreatment, as well as anxiety caused by the Commission of Inquiry process itself.[38]

On September 18, 2006, the Canadian Commission of Inquiry, led by Dennis O'Connor, Associate Chief Justice of Ontario, issued its report. The final report exonerates Arar and categorically states that there is no evidence linking Arar to terrorist activity, stating “there is no evidence to indicate that Mr. Arar has committed any offence or that his activities constitute a threat to the security of Canada.” The Commission also found no evidence that Canadian officials acquiesced in the U.S. decision to detain and remove Mr. Arar to Syria, but that it is very likely that the U.S. relied on inaccurate and unfair information about Mr. Arar that was provided by Canadian officials. The report also confirms that he was tortured while in Syria.[38][39][40]

On August 9, 2007, an addendum to the final report containing previously undisclosed portions was released. The final report was released with certain portions blacked out for reasons of national security by the Canadian government. Under the rules for the Inquiry, the decision to release the remaining portions of the final report were to be decided within the Canadian courts. In July 2007, the Federal Court ruled that portions of the previously removed text could be released.[41]

[edit] RCMP apology

On September 28, 2006, RCMP Commissioner Giuliano Zaccardelli issued a carefully worded public apology to Arar and his family during the House of Commons committee on public safety and national security:

Mr. Arar, I wish to take this opportunity to express publicly to you and to your wife and to your children how truly sorry I am for whatever part the actions of the RCMP may have contributed to the terrible injustices that you experienced and the pain that you and your family endured.[42]

Arar thanked Commissioner Zaccardelli for his apology but lamented the lack of concrete disciplinary action against those individuals whose actions led to his detention and subsequent torture.[43] Zaccardelli later resigned as RCMP commissioner because of this case.



Canadian government apology and settlement

On January 26, 2007, after months of negotiations between the Canadian government and Arar's Canadian legal counsel, Prime Minister Stephen Harper issued a formal apology to Arar on behalf of the Canadian government and announced that Arar would receive $10.5 million settlement for his ordeal and an additional $1 million for legal costs.[8] Since Canada's role in the affair was quite minor compared with Syria's and the USA's, there has been widespread criticism of the size of the settlement reached by Canada and Arar.

On January 26, 2007, Harper released a copy of a letter sent to Arar, apologizing "for any role Canadian officials may have played in what happened to Mr. Arar, Monia Mazigh and their family in 2002 and 2003."[44]

[edit] Aftermath

In Canada, Arar's ordeal has raised numerous questions that have yet to be answered. Canadian authorities have been unable to discover who leaked sensitive government documents to O'Neill. Those who were involved in the case in the RCMP have not been reprimanded by the government for their mistakes. In fact, several have received promotions.[45]

As of December 2006, the only person held accountable in Canada has been RCMP Commissioner Giuliano Zaccardelli, who actually resigned over contradictions in his testimony to the House of Commons Committee on Public Safety and National Security. The contradictions were with respect to what he knew at the time and what he told government ministers.[46]

Many commentators and Liberal MPs also dog Harper's government with statements made by its members while they were the official opposition in the House of Commons. Several Conservative party members, including Canadian Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, apparently assumed Arar's guilt, labeling him a terrorist.[47][48] Other commentators have suggested that the settlement reached by the Harper government was designed to embarrass the Liberals, on whose watch Arar was allegedly deported and tortured, since the relatively minor role played by Canada in the affair could not conceivably warrant a settlement of $10.5 million.






ispute over Canadian involvement in his rendition

After Arar's release, the controversy continued over his treatment by the U.S. and over the role that Canadian police and government officials may have played in his removal and interrogation. The United States claimed that the RCMP had provided them with a list of suspicious persons that included Arar.[67] It was also discovered that Canadian consular officials knew that Arar was in custody in the United States but did not believe that he would be removed. The Canadian government maintains that the decision to remove Arar to Syria was made by American officials alone.

Canadian officials apparently told U.S. officials Arar was no longer a resident of Canada. The New York Times reported, "In July 2002, the Mounted Police learned that Mr. Arar and his family were in Tunisia, and incorrectly concluded that they had left Canada permanently." [68]

At a summit meeting in Monterrey, Mexico, on January 13, 2004, former Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin and U.S. President George W. Bush reached an agreement, sometimes referred to as the Monterrey Accord, which obliged the United States to notify Canada before deporting a Canadian citizen to a third country. However, according to a news story in the Toronto Globe and Mail, Stephen Yale-Loehr, lawyer and adjunct professor of immigration and asylum law at Cornell University told the Arar inquiry "the Canada-U.S. agreement struck... to prevent a recurrence of the Arar affair is ineffective and legally unenforceable."[69]

In 2007, as part of the investigation into government foreknowledge, it was revealed that CSIS chief Jack Hooper had sent a memo on October 10, 2002 that included the reference "I think the United States would like to get Arar to Jordan where they can have their way with him", which was the first conclusive evidence that CSIS, and not just the RCMP, knew that a Canadian was going to be tortured at the request of the United States.[70] A year later, Hooper contacted the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade to tell them that it was not in Canada's interests to demand that the United States return Maher Arar.[71]

In September,2008, former RCMP commissioner Giuliano Zaccardelli, now with Interpol, said that the White House "threw away the rule book" after 9/11 and that the RCMP was led to believe that Arar would be sent back to Canada from New York.[3]Zaccardelli told the CBC that U.S. authorities said that they didn't have enough evidence to lay charges against Arar and wanted to know whether Arar would be arrested if he returned to Canada. "The discussion was: 'If we let him go and he comes to Canada, can you arrest him or detain him?' And we keep reaffirming, 'No we can't'," Zaccardelli said.

The RCMP set up surveillance team to watch Arar upon his return: "We are waiting in Montreal for the plane to arrive with Mr. Arar getting off the plane. The plane arrives. Mr. Arar never got off." Zaccardelli said.[72]





Further reading

[edit] External links

[edit] General

[edit] News coverage

Search Wikinews Wikinews has related news: U.S. flight logs back Maher Arar's claims, The New York Times finds
Search Wikinews Wikinews has related news: Canadian government apologizes to deportation victim Arar

[edit] Commentary



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Sunday, July 19, 2009

Harper Conservatives owe Canadians answers!!!.

Harper Conservatives owe Canadians answers on national security certificates



OTTAWA – The Harper Conservatives risk losing public faith in our anti-terrorism laws unless they explain to Canadians why powers designed to protect the public from terrorism were abused, Liberal Public Safety & National Security Critic Mark Holland said today.

Mr. Holland was commenting on the revelation that, for the second time in as many months, Canada’s spy agency was found to have withheld evidence from a federal court judge regarding the arrest of a foreign national being held on a national security certificate.

“Liberals have been clear that enforcement and application of our anti-terrorism laws must always comply with the rule of law and respect our Charter of Rights, so that no individuals or groups are subject to discriminatory treatment,” said Mr. Holland. “We now have two clear cases where CSIS failed to live up to their responsibility to share the full story with the court.”

Letters written by a federal court judge concerning security certificate hearings against Hassan Almrei show that the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service wrongly claimed that one informant had taken a lie-detector test, while failing to disclose that another informant had been “deceptive.” In May, CSIS was criticized for withholding damaging polygraph results for a key government source in a hearing against Mohamed Harkat.

“Protecting Canadians from terrorism cannot come at the cost of trampling on the civil liberties that we hold so dear,” said Mr. Holland. “We need to know why those entrusted with upholding our national security have abused their responsibility to provide the federal court with full disclosure behind the scenes.”

Under Canada’s anti-terrorism laws, foreign nationals suspected of involvement in terrorist activities can be arrested if a federal judge orders a national security certificate following secret hearings where matters of national security are disclosed. The discovery of withheld or incorrect evidence comes following amendments to Canada’s anti-terrorism laws made in 2008 which allows for “special advocates” to represent terror suspects in secret hearings. These amendments were supported by Liberal MPs only after guarantees were made in law that no evidence that may have been obtained through torture would be admissible in the hearings.

“The Harper Conservatives owe Canadians an explanation on why these men have been detained for so long on the basis of incomplete evidence,” concluded Mr. Holland. “People everywhere are entitled to live in peace and security, but these freedoms must never come at the expense of anyone’s right to due process and a fair hearing.”

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Saturday, July 18, 2009

Charter violation doesn't nix evidence.

The Supreme Court of Canada has ordered a new trial for a Saskatoon man who was acquitted of impaired driving.

Curtis Shepherd was acquitted after a judge threw out breathalyzer evidence on the grounds the arresting officer did not have reasonable and probable grounds to demand the breath sample.

The Supreme Court found the officer had reasonable grounds and the trial judge erred in tossing out the evidence. It therefore upheld the Saskatchewan Court of Appeal's order that a new trial be conducted.

No date has been set for the new trial.

The ruling was one of four Supreme Court cases related to the admissibility of evidence that were released concurrently on Friday. In all four cases, defence lawyers claimed that police obtained key evidence illegally, in violation of protections spelled out in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

The court's rulings more precisely define the balancing act a judge is often called on to make between an accused person's constitutional right to be protected from unreasonable search and seizure and arbitrary detention against society's need that justice be served.

In the judgments, the court seemed to suggest that judges in the future pay close attention to the conduct of police, condoning a charter violation by police that was "neither deliberate nor egregious" in a case that upheld a conviction against a man for carrying a concealed firearm, but throwing out the conviction of the drug trafficker after agreeing with a lower court finding that the arresting officer in the case displayed "brazen and flagrant" disregard for the accused charter rights.

"These are protections that law-abiding Canadians take for granted and courts must play a role in safeguarding them, even when the beneficiaries are involved in unlawful activity," Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin wrote in the judgment that acquitted the drug trafficker.

A three-part admissibility of evidence test laid out in one of the cases, that of Donnohue Grant, which was referred to in the Shepherd decision, has the potential to "change the landscape" for drinking and driving offences in Canada, said Dean Sinclair, the head of appeals for Saskatchewan public prosecutions.

In the Grant case, the court found police violated his charter right but their actions were justifiable in the circumstances.

The Grant ruling changes the test judges must employ when deciding whether to exclude evidence gathered in violation of a suspect's rights, Sinclair said.

"They have to put their minds to the nature of the violation, the impact on the right and society's interest in having the case adjudicated. That is a remarkably different approach from what we've been engaged in," said Sinclair.

"It's a big deal. This is a very important case," he said.

In the past judges, automatically threw out evidence if the accused's rights were found to have been violated, Sinclair said.

"With the decision in Grant, that will no longer be the approach," he said.

Shepherd's lawyer, Michael Owens, could not be reached for comment Friday, but another Saskatoon defence lawyer who specializes in drinking and driving cases disagrees with Sinclair's assertion.

"Nothing has changed," said Ron Piche.

Although the "vast majority" of lower court judges felt bound by colleagues who excluded breathalyzer evidence on the grounds of breach of rights, there was no actual "near automatic exclusion rule," Piche said.

"Courts have to engage in that analysis in every case," he said.

The elements of the test outlined in the Grant case have always been required, Piche said.

"Our highest court has certainly alerted the lower courts that there is no automatic exclusion rule, however much of the considerations they note in Grant are the same considerations courts should have noted previously.

"The value of the Grant decision is it's a wake-up call to judges to not automatically exclude that evidence based on lack of reasonable grounds. That's nothing new."

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under certain conditions, evidence can be used in court even if that evidence was obtained unconstitutionally by police

The Supreme Court of Canada has ruled that, under certain conditions, evidence can be used in court even if that evidence was obtained unconstitutionally by police officers.

The Supreme Court of Canada has ruled that, under certain conditions, evidence can be used in court even if that evidence was obtained unconstitutionally by police officers.

Photograph by: Geoff Robins, Geoff Robins

OTTAWA — The Supreme Court of Canada, ruling Friday in a quartet of separate but thematically related cases, acquitted a man of drug trafficking charges though he was caught with 35 kilograms of cocaine but upheld a conviction against a man for carrying a concealed, loaded revolver.

In all four cases, defence lawyers had claimed that police obtained key evidence illegally, in violation of protections spelled out in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

The Court's rulings Friday more precisely define the balancing act a judge is often called on to make between an accused person's constitutional right to be protected from unreasonable search and seizure and arbitrary detention against society's need that justice be served.

In the judgments, the Court seemed to suggest that judges in the future pay close attention to the conduct of police, condoning a Charter violation by police that was "neither deliberate nor egregious" in the firearms case but throwing out the conviction of the drug trafficker after agreeing with a lower court finding that the arresting officer in the case displayed "brazen and flagrant" disregard for the accused person's Charter rights.

"These are protections that law-abiding Canadians take for granted and courts must play a role in safeguarding them, even when the beneficiaries are involved in unlawful activity," Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin wrote in the judgment that acquitted the drug trafficker.

The rulings had been widely anticipated in the legal community. A judge who lets the drug trafficker go free "on a technicality" related to a Charter rights violation can get criticized for being "soft on crime." But judges who let police get away with breaking the law when they investigate crimes raises the ire of those trying to protect the civil liberties of all Canadians.

"Our worst fear was that the court might respond to fear-mongering that has been aimed at judges who apply the Charter in real cases. It didn't," said Frank Addario, a Toronto defence lawyer speaking on behalf of the Criminal Lawyers Association. "While it rewrote the test for excluding evidence, it gave some hope to those who expect the courts to be the guardian of Canadians' Constitutional rights."

In the drug-trafficking case, the accused, Bradley Harrison, was behind the wheel of an SUV in the middle of the day on Oct. 24, 2004 on a highway in northern Ontario near Kirkland Lake.

An Ontario Provincial Police officer thought it suspicious that Harrison was driving at the legal speed limit because, as the police officer testified at trial, everyone drove over the speed limit on the section of highway he was patrolling.

After pulling Harrison over, he discovered that Harrison had his licence suspended. He was arrested at that point.

At that point, the OPP officers searched the vehicle and found a box containing 35 kilograms of cocaine.

The court ruled that not only were there no grounds to pull the vehicle over the in the first place — Harrison was obeying the posted speed limit, after all — but the officer also had no grounds to search the vehicle. The court said that to admit the evidence obtained by the illegal search — the cocaine — would bring the administration of justice into disrepute.

"This was far from a technical or trivial breach (of Charter rights)," McLachlin wrote in the 6-1 judgment.

"There is a strong direction for trial judges to not reward deliberate breaches of the Charter," Addario said. "From a civil liberties perspective it sends the right message. The charter is not an optional honour code that can be ignored if it constrains the police. That's one of its signal purposes."

But in the firearms case, involving an accused named Donnohue Grant, the Supreme Court concluded that the administration of justice would have been brought into disrepute if they had not overlooked an error by police.

On Nov. 17, 2003, Grant, then 18, was walking along a sidewalk in Toronto's east end in the middle of the day. Two plainclothes police officers drove by and noticed that he was "fidgeting" with his pants and coats as they drove by and that Grant "stared" at them in an an unusual way.

The two officers had been on patrol in a school area that had experienced a high number of student assaults, robberies and drug offences. They decided to "have a chat" with Grant and radioed to a nearby uniformed officer to talk to him. Though the uniformed officer did not physically restrain Grant, the officer blocked Grant's path on the sidewalk and, at one point, asked Grant to keep his hands in front of him.

The uniformed officer asked Grant where he was going, what he was doing and whether he had ever been arrested. After a few minutes, an officer asked Grant if he "had anything on him that he shouldn't." Grant initially said he did not but then conceded he was carrying "a small bag of weed". An officer replied, "Is that it?"According to court testimony, Grant hung his head and said, "Well, no." After another question, Grant conceded he was also carrying a concealed firearm.

At that point the three officers arrested him, searched him, and found the marijuana and a loaded revolver. Grant was subsequently convicted of several weapons offences and was sentence to 18 months in jail.

The Supreme Court found police erred in detaining Grant but noted that their conduct was "not abusive" and it was "neither deliberate nor egregious." The court balanced that against the seriousness of the crime — carrying a concealed, loaded revolver — and found that, despite the police misconduct, "admitting the evidence would not greatly undermine public confidence in the rule of law."

In the third case, the court held that a demand by a police officer to provide a roadside breath sample is acceptable when an officer has "reasonable" grounds to believe the suspect is drunk. In the case at hand, police saw the accused driving erratically and over the speed limit. When pulled over, the police officer smelled alcohol and noticed the accused had red eyes, slurred speech and slow movements. After making those kinds of observations, a demand to provide a breath sample is reasonable, the court held, and does not violate Constitutional protections against self-incrimination.

Finally, in the fourth case, an attempt by a man convicted of fraud to show that he was "arbitrarily detained" in violation of his Charter rights when a police officer simply said, "Wait a minute, I want to talk to you," as he was walking by the officer was dismissed by the court. The man's conviction was upheld.

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