The applicants, charged with tax evasion under the Income Tax Act and Excise Tax Act, brought a Charter motion alleging breaches of their sections 7 and 8 rights.
They argued that a CRA auditor improperly used civil audit powers to gather evidence for a criminal investigation.
The court applied the Jarvis predominant purpose test and found the auditor's focus remained on civil tax liability until the file was referred to criminal investigations.
The court did find a section 8 breach because the search warrant did not explicitly authorize a thorough search of seized electronic data storage units.
However, applying the Grant framework, the court admitted the evidence under section 24(2), concluding the breach was minor, the officers acted in good faith, and there is a strong societal interest in adjudicating the serious allegations on their merits.
