One's Trash May be Police Treasure: R v Patrick.

• Date: 01 November 2018
• Author: Bowal, Peter

November 2, 2018

"Location is not the litmus test for determining the expectation of privacy." R v Patrick, 2009 SCC 17, para 6 Introduction

In Canada, our home is our castle, at least in legal terms. We enjoy the greatest constitutional protection of privacy in our homes. What happens when our private personal information from our homes is set outside as trash? We expect it will go straight to the waste disposal system. Are we entitled to privacy for our garbaged personal information? In 2009, the Supreme Court of Canada answered this question in R v Patrick.

Facts

In 2003 Russell Patrick was in his late twenties, a university graduate in physics and a former champion swimmer. He had represented Canada at the 1994 Commonwealth Games and held the Canadian men's 100-metre breaststroke record from 1995 until 2001. Patrick was also successful in the narcotics industry, at the top of a sophisticated criminal organization targeting young people. He operated an ecstasy lab in his house.

Picking through abandoned garbage is a common police practice in criminal investigations. Six times in December 2003, without a warrant, Calgary police went to the lane behind Patrick's house in the early morning, reached into the airspace across the fence line into Patrick's garbage cans, pulled out...