Harval Bassi

The accused, Pritpal Singh, was tried for multiple drug trafficking and possession offences alongside a Garofoli application challenging several search warrants.

The court dismissed the majority of the Garofoli application, finding that the accused did not have standing to seek excision of evidence obtained through the breach of a third party's Charter rights, and that the Information to Obtain (ITO) established reasonable grounds for most of the warrants.

Based on an Agreed Statement of Fact, the court found the accused guilty of trafficking heroin, possession of heroin and opium for the purpose of trafficking, and possession of proceeds of crime, relying on circumstantial evidence and the doctrine of constructive possession.

The co-accused daughter was acquitted at the Crown's request.

The applicants, charged with trafficking contraband shisha tobacco, brought a Garofoli application challenging the validity of multiple general and search warrants.

They argued the warrants were based on insufficient grounds, unreliable confidential informants, and misleading information provided by the affiant.

The court reviewed the Information to Obtain (ITO) for each warrant, applying the Debot criteria to assess the informants' reliability.

The court found that while there were some errors and misleading statements in the ITOs, they were not egregious enough to subvert the process.

After excising the erroneous information, the court concluded that the remaining corroborated evidence provided sufficient reasonable and probable grounds for the issuing justices to grant the warrants.

The application to exclude evidence under s. 24(2) of the Charter was dismissed.

The three accused, charged with conspiracy to import cocaine and breach of trust, brought applications under s. 24(2) of the Charter to exclude intercepted private communications.

They alleged their s. 8 rights were violated because the police affiant deliberately misled the authorizing judge regarding the investigative plan to establish reasonable and probable grounds for the wiretap.

The court found the affidavit was materially misleading, though not deliberately so, and that without the misleading information, the authorization lacked reasonable and probable grounds.

The court concluded the wiretap violated s. 8 of the Charter and excluded the evidence under s. 24(2), finding the serious police carelessness and subsequent false testimony by the affiant outweighed society's interest in a trial on the merits.

The accused, charged with drug importation offences, brought a pre-trial Charter application challenging five successive wiretap authorizations.

The Crown objected to his standing to challenge the first authorization, as he was not named and his communications were not intercepted under it.

The court held that the accused lacked standing to challenge the first authorization directly because he had no reasonable expectation of privacy.

However, the court ruled he had standing to challenge the subsequent authorizations that did intercept his communications, and in doing so, he could seek to excise information from their supporting ITOs that was allegedly obtained in violation of his co-accused's Charter rights under the first authorization.