The applicant brought a pre-trial Charter application seeking to exclude evidence obtained during a smuggling investigation on the St. Lawrence River.
Police officers detained the applicant on a dock but failed to inform him of the reasons for his detention before arresting him for obstruction when he attempted to walk away.
The court found the detention was arbitrary and the subsequent arrest unlawful, violating sections 9 and 10(a) of the Charter.
Consequently, the search incident to arrest violated section 8, and the ID, currency, and fingerprints seized from the applicant were excluded under section 24(2).
However, the court found no section 8 violation regarding the search of a nearby boat that yielded marijuana, as the applicant had no reasonable expectation of privacy in the vessel.
