Viewpoint 39-1: Like hockey, court's 'Mr. Big' decision clarifies the rule book and the 'code'.

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What are Canada's pre-eminent cultural symbols? Hockey is surely a top contender. The values of the rink are deeply embedded in our broader social values. Another contender is our criminal justice system, which strikes a quintessentially Canadian compromise between individual liberty, and collective responsibility. On Thursday, the Supreme Court of Canada demonstrated how similar they are.

The Court has ruled on a police trick known as the "Mr. Big" sting. An undercover officer pretending to be a rich gangster (Mr. Big) befriends the target of the police investigation and shows him a high-rolling good time. Mr. Big then tells the target that to join the criminal elite he must be a serious criminal himself. The target, eager to please, confesses to what police have suspected but not yet been able to prove. A deliberate, elaborate and expensive police ruse extracts a confession the target would never have offered had he known Mr. Big was a police officer.

Is this police trick permissible? The Supreme Court said, in most cases, no. And to understand why, we need to think hockey.

The culture of hockey is defined by not one, but two sets of rules: the official rule book, and the "code". The rule book and the code interact in subtle and fascinating ways. Tripping is prohibited by the rule book. So you should never trip another player, right? Wrong. Sometimes tripping is a "good penalty", for example if it prevents a sure goal. And while fighting is against the rules but sanctioned by the code, kicking during a fight is against the code because it is far too dangerous.

Together, the rule book and the code send a defining cultural message. A certain degree of rough-and-tumble is part of life, but only to a point: and that point is serious danger of injury. Neither the hockey rule book nor the code are fixed. For example, the current debate about fighting in hockey, informed by research on head trauma, is prompting an evolution of both. Constant improvement of the game means regularly re-thinking what is acceptable under both the rule book and the code.

Our criminal justice system mirrors these hockey values. The "rule book" grants us many different rights and freedoms that the police must respect. But the "code" says the courts will overlook breaches of the rules by the police when those breaches would not cause serious injury to the justice system. For example, evidence...

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