Foreword to the First Edition

• Author: Eric V Gottardi
• Profession: Partner, Peck and Company Barristers, Vancouver
• Pages: 13-14

Table of Contents xiii

Foreword to the First Edition

When I attended Queen’s law school, I had the great fortune to be surrounded by

some of the country’s leading minds in criminal law: Don Stuart, Alan Manson, Gary

Trotter (as he then was), and Ron Delisle. It was within this heady academic milieu

that I was first exposed to the Charter and the rights enshrined therein. Those experi-

ences fuelled my passion to be a litigator, and it is in the context of drug cases, in

particular, that these rights are most routinely engaged. Our rights, as citizens, to

move freely about our neighbourhoods and to be free from unreasonable search or

seizure is most often challenged by those in law enforcement. As the authors note

early on in their useful text, “Drug prosecutions cover a wide variety of activity and

human behaviour: from a drug user with addiction issues charged with possession of

small amounts of drugs to large-scale, international operations run by criminal organ-

izations, and everything in between.” Drug prosecutions often arise from the inter-

section of police scrutiny with all sorts of routine day-to-day activity, such as going to

a rock concert. Drug prosecutions, while often focused on organized, commercial

criminal enterprises, also establish the jurisprudence that governs how and where

police can interact with all Canadians during their everyday lives.

I once had a prosecutor tell me a joke: “What do you call a drug case without a

Charter argument? A conviction.” I appreciated the joke on that occasion, since I had

not advanced a Charter argument and instead had put my client in the witness box.

He was acquitted. This story came to mind as I perused the table of contents of this

text on drug oences. Only one of the 13 chapters is devoted to Charter issues.

This text helpfully walks the reader through a chronological approach to handling

a drug case. With helpful and practical tips, such as familiarizing yourself with the

PPSC Deskbook,1 the text oers a well-balanced perspective to the prosecution and

defence of drug cases. Topics run from bail hearings to sentencing and discuss, in

plain and straightforward language, common issues that arise in relation to disclo-

sure, the Charter, and the evidentiary burden on the Crown. Substantive chapters on

1 Public Prosecution Service of Canada, Public Prosecution Service of Canada Deskbook (Ottawa:

PPSC, 2020), online (pdf ): <https://www.ppsc-sppc.gc.ca/eng/pub/fpsd-sfpg/fps-sfp/tpd/

d-g-eng.pdf>.

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