The accused, a Mandarin-speaking permanent resident with rudimentary English, was charged with operating a conveyance with blood alcohol concentration at or exceeding 80 mg/100 mL.
The court found two s. 10(b) Charter breaches: an unjustified eight-minute delay before rights to counsel were read, and a failure by all officers to provide a Mandarin interpreter to communicate the informational component of her rights, despite objective indicators of her limited English proficiency being apparent throughout the encounter.
Applying the Grant framework, the court found that the first two inquiries — seriousness of the breaches and impact on the accused's Charter-protected interests — strongly favoured exclusion, and that the language breach was tantamount to not providing rights to counsel at all.
The third factor favouring admission (reliability and importance of breath evidence) did not tip the balance.
Breath samples were excluded and the charge was dismissed.
