Other Investigative Powers

• Author: Steve Coughlan
• Pages: 214-281

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CHAPTER 5

OTHER INVESTIGATIVE

POW ER S

A. INTRODUCTION

This chapter deals with police investigative techniques other than

searches with a nd without a warrant, which were discussed in Ch apter

4. There are a number of such techniques — indeed, as the discussion

below will show, there is, in principle, no necessary limit to their num-

ber — but the discussion here will focus on three specific areas. All

three areas, this discussion suggests, show a significant expansion in

police powers, all postdating, and in some cases ironically due to, the

Charter.

First, section 487.01 of the Code, which creates “general warrants,”

will be examined. Most of the principles relating to the review of the

issuance of search warrants discussed in Chapter 4 apply equally to

these warrants, and they also authorize techniques that infringe on

a reasonable expectation of privacy. As a result, it would have been

possible to discuss them in that chapter. However, general warrants

can authorize techniques going well beyond anything that one would

traditionally think of as a search — in the terms of the statute, they are

available to authorize police to “do any thing” — and so they are worth

singling out for particular discussion.

Second, police powers of detention will be considered. There are

statutory powers of detention, some of which occur in the investiga-

tive process (breatha lyzer tests, for example, involve a power to detain).

What will be of most interest, however, are post-Charter developments

Other Investigative Powers215

in caselaw that expand the powers of detention given to the police at

common law and, indeed, expand the notion of “common law powers”

themselves.

Finally, section 25.1 of the Code, which authorizes designated offi-

cers to break the law, will be discussed. It is perhaps obvious without

elaboration that this provision might be a cause for concern about the

expansion of police powers.

B. GENERAL WARRANTS: SECTION 487.01

Se ction 4 87.011 of the Code contains what is normally referred to as the

“general warrant provision.”2 It was introduced in the wake of a deci-

sion by the Supreme Court about warrantless se arches and is intended to

provide for warrants to perform investigative techniques not covered by

other Codeprovisions. It is sometimes described as filling the gap left by

section 487 and other warrant provi sions in the Code, though it is a ques-

tion for debate as to whether there could properly have been said to be a

gap. Section 487.01 has had something of a checkered interpretive jour-

ney: for about two decades it was interpreted by lower courts in a very

broad fashion creating an almost unlimited array of police powers, until

in 2013 the Supreme Court gave guidance which narrowed the legiti mate

use of the provision. The net result is that the section quite arguably has

been given an interpretation t hat is broader than Parliament had in mind,

but where the worst excesses are probably now in check.

In R v Wong, the police had placed a small video camera in a hotel

room to record activities with in.3 Had they wanted to audiotape the room,

they would have had to comply with the Code provisions dealing with

wiretaps. However, those provisions made no mention of video cameras,

so the police argued that they needed no special permission; that is, in

1 For an explanat ion of these provisions in ch art form, see Steve Coughlan &

Alex Gorlewski, The An atomy of Criminal Procedure: A Visual Guide to the L aw

(Toronto: Irwin Law, 2019) [Anatomy of Criminal Procedure], Chart 1.1(b)(iv),

“Section 487.01 General Warrants.”

2 It is worth bein g aware of some ambiguity ass ociated with this te rm. The Code

contains se arch warrants in s ection 487 but also has many much more s pecific

warrant powe rs (see Chapter 4, Section C(1)(b)). Because there are so many

specific wa rrant provisions, judges s ometimes refer to section 487 sea rch war-

rants as t he “general war rant provisions.” In addition, one wi ll occasionally see

references to the com mon law principle that there c annot be a “general warrant”:

that is, a sea rch warrant must be aime d at a particular person a nd particular

evidence: see, for ex ample, R v Noble, [1985] OJ No 809 at para 17 (CA).

3 R v Wong, [1990] 3 SCR 36 at para 28 [Wong].

CRIMINAL PROCEDURE

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the absence of specific limitations on their powers, they were free to use

whatever investigative means they chose. That approach, the Supreme

Court decided, “wholly misunderstands Duarte. It is the Charter, spe-

cifically s. 8, that protected the appellant there and it is the Charter that

protects the present appellant . . . s. 8 was designed to provide continu-

ing protection against unreasonable search and seizure and to keep pace

with emerging technological development.”4 In other words, the Court

relied on the principle that individuals are to be free from state interfer-

ence unless such interference is spec ifically authorized. The Court noted

that, in the absence of authorization, video surveillance fell into the gen-

eral category of warrantless searches, which are prima facie unreason-

able. The Court also held that it was not their role to create authoriz ation

for video surveillance — that was a decision for Parliament to make:

Until such time as Parliament, in its wisdom, specifically provides

for a code of conduct for a particular inva sive technology, the courts

should forebear from crafting procedures authorizing the deploy-

ment of the technology in question. The role of the courts should be

limited to ass essing the constitutional ity of any legislation passed by

Parliament which bears on the matter.5

One would most naturally read Wong, which refers to George

Orwell’s “classic dystopian novel” 19846 in its reasoning, as a recogni-

tion of the right of individuals to be generally free from state interfer-

ence: “The notion that the agencies of the state should be at liberty to

train hidden cameras on members of society wherever and whenever

they wish is fundamentally irreconcilable with what we perceive to

be acceptable behaviour on the part of government.”7 However, Parlia-

ment appears to have read the decision as making precisely the oppos-

ite invitation. Section 487.01, although it does not quite allow agents of

the state to search “wherever and whenever” they wish, verges danger-

ously close to that direction.8

Put broadly, the problem facing the police in Wongwas that no

warrant was available for placement of a video camera, but without a

4 Ibid.

5 Ibid at para 36.

6 Ibid at para 15, referring to George Or well, 1984 (New York: Harcour t, Brace, 1947).

7 Wong, ab ove note 3.

8 One would, of course, comply with the lette r of the principle, “the police only

have the powers e xplicitly given to them,” if one explicit ly gave the police the

power to do anyth ing, but that would clearly violate t he notion of restraint that

is the spir it of the principle. A similar appro ach can be seen in the govern ment’s

approach to the ru le of law reflected in section 2 5.1 of the Code, dis cussed in

Section D, below in th is chapter.