SECTION 8 - VEHICLE SEARCHES

The Ontario Court of Appeal recently reviewed the areas of detention, searching for officer safety, arrest, search incident to arrest and motor vehicle inventory searches.  In each case, a firearm was found after a vehicle search.  In R. v. Dunkley, 2016 ONCA 597 the Court found a Charter breach, excluded the firearm evidence and acquitted the accused.  In R. v. Ellis, 2016 ONCA 598 the Court concluded there was no Charter breach and upheld the accused’s conviction.  Although these are not impaired driving cases, they do provide officers with a general review of the above areas of law which are relevant with respect to detaining impaired drivers and also relevant to the issue of how far an officer can go in searching a vehicle pursuant to an impaired driving investigation.  Of course, provincial Highway Traffic Act / Traffic Safety Act legislation differs from province to province so officers have to be aware of the search powers available under each province’s legislation as well.