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Ayler, Cops

In late July Boing Boing posted a link to a site offering advise on how to deal with the police, particularly in New York, when confronted to be searched. What are your rights when refusing to be searched? The post is archived here and the link to the site is here. It's a good read, pretty thorough, but it only applies to the US. It got me thinking about my own rights in Canada and a couple of things in particular struck me. In Canada we have a Charter of Rights and Freedoms, but I'm certain that there are limits and differences in search and seizure procedures. The problem of course, is that Canadians are familiar with American laws through TV cop shows and there are assumptions that we have Miranda rights or something similar (obviously called something else). Plus, Canadians can be a compliant lot and when asked by a cop to open your bag, I'm guessing a (small?) majority of Canadians would comply without thinking.

I'm hoping I'm wrong, but the problem remains that there's not much info out there dealing with specifically Canadian laws. What are my rights? Can a cop enter my home without a warrant, or search my car, or ask me to open my backpack in the subway? The likelihood of terrorists hitting Toronto transit is small and the chair of the Toronto transit authority already stated that there would be no random bag checks in the near future. But I still don't know all my rights.

I emailed Cory Doctorow, the Boing Boinger who posted the link, and he forwarded my question to Michael Geist. Michael was nice enough to email me to let me know that he wasn't aware of any Canadian websites that had similar info but he would suggest it to a couple of organizations that may be in a position to produce something.

A long, long time ago, two friends and I were driving around my hometown of Hamilton, Ontario. We were pulled over by three police cars, including a station wagon with a mean-looking drug-sniffing dog. They said there was a report of a suspicious car driving in the neighbourhood and pointed to my friend in the front passenger seat (I was driving) and said, "that's the one" to each other. They asked for ID from me and him and we produced it. It was only later that I thought about this. The cops had the authority to pull me over if my car answered a description. They had the authority to ask me for ID as the driver. But they had no right to ask my friend for his ID. Anyway, nothing happened, but it's made me wary of these sorts of things and it's about time I'm sure of my rights.

Albert Ayler
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