Background
A police officer arrested Cadence Gordon Beauparlant believing him to be the driver of a vehicle that had fled the scene of an injury accident. In a search incident to that arrest, officers found fentanyl in his jacket pocket, a prohibited knife, money, and illicit pills in his satchel, and additional money in his vehicle. Beauparlant was charged with possession of drugs for the purpose of trafficking, possession of a prohibited weapon, and possession of proceeds of crime.
At trial before Justice David A. Broad of the Superior Court of Justice, the court found that Beauparlant’s rights under ss. 8 and 9 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms had been violated: the arresting officer’s subjective belief that he had grounds for arrest was not objectively reasonable, rendering the arrest unlawful and the search incident to it likewise unlawful. Despite those Charter breaches, the trial judge admitted the evidence under s. 24(2) of the Charter following the framework set out in R. v. Grant, 2009 SCC 32, and convicted Beauparlant on all counts.
Beauparlant appealed to the Court of Appeal for Ontario, challenging solely the trial judge’s s. 24(2) ruling and the balancing of the three Grant factors.
The Court’s Holding
The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding no error that would displace the deference owed to the trial judge’s s. 24(2) analysis. On the first Grant factor — the seriousness of the Charter-infringing conduct — the court found the trial judge was entitled to conclude the breaches were not at the serious end of the spectrum. Although the trial judge used an imprecise phrase in characterizing this factor as favouring admission, the court found that the correct framing — that the factor only weakly pulled toward exclusion — was consistent with his reasoning and disclosed no reversible error.
On the second and third Grant factors, the trial judge had found that the second (impact on Charter-protected interests) favoured exclusion, while the third (society’s interest in adjudication on the merits) favoured admission given the reliability of the evidence and the gutting effect its exclusion would have on the Crown’s case. The appellate court rejected the challenge to the overall balancing, noting that the public interest in a merits adjudication was strong, the offences were serious, and the trial judge had properly considered the cumulative effect of the ss. 8 and 9 breaches in his overall assessment.
Key Takeaways
- An officer’s honest but objectively unreasonable belief in grounds for arrest renders the arrest — and any search incident to it — unlawful under ss. 8 and 9 of the Charter, yet the resulting evidence may still be admitted under s. 24(2).
- A trial judge’s Grant factor analysis attracts considerable appellate deference; intervention requires an error in principle, a palpable and overriding factual error, or an unreasonable determination.
- An inadvertent, non-willful, non-reckless error by a police officer — such as failing to verify dispatch information — will generally place Charter breaches toward the less serious end of the spectrum for s. 24(2) purposes.
- Where the evidence is reliable and its exclusion would effectively gut the Crown’s case on serious charges, the third Grant factor can be weighty enough to tip the balance toward admission even where other factors point to exclusion.
Why It Matters
This decision reinforces the limited scope of appellate review of s. 24(2) rulings in Canada. By confirming that a trial judge’s imprecise language does not constitute a reversible error in principle where the underlying reasoning is sound, the court signals that technical missteps in framing the Grant factors will not automatically trigger a fresh analysis on appeal.
The case also provides a practical illustration of how Grant balancing operates when police conduct falls short of objective reasonableness but is not willful or reckless: the first factor’s pull toward exclusion is weakened, and the seriousness of the offences combined with the reliability of the evidence can sustain admission. Defence counsel and prosecutors in drug and weapons cases will find the court’s treatment of the cumulative Charter breach analysis — encompassing both ss. 8 and 9 — a useful reference point.