A blue Volkswagen with Alberta plates is pulled over by two Mounties on an October afternoon in Fort Providence. The driver is detained – then arrested.
In the backseat of the car, inside a suitcase, officers locate a fully loaded AR-15 carbine rifle, along with a folding knife. In the trunk, locked in a safe, cash and nearly 100 grams of cocaine is uncovered.
It was a significant drug and weapons seizure – later characterized as “rare” by a NWT Supreme Court Justice. In a news release issued on Oct. 22, 2018, two days after the seizure, NWT RCMP lauded the efforts of the officers for “removing dangerous weapons and illicit drugs from the community.”
But the man behind the wheel, 30-year-old Cassiuis Paradis – who has pleaded not guilty to 12 gun and drug charges stemming from the October traffic stop – argued his Charter rights were violated when he was stopped and searched by police.
On March 1, Justice Shannon Smallwood agreed.
Smallwood ruled the Mounties – constables Steven Beck and Lee Bennett – violated the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms when they stopped Paradis. At the point when the car was pulled over, the officers did not have reasonable grounds to detain Paradis, she said.
“The initial stop was unlawful,” said Smallwood, adding the “sole purpose” of the traffic stop was to investigate a drug trafficking complaint.
The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms protects citizens from being “arbitrarily detained or imprisoned.”
Paradis's Charter challenge triggered a voir dire – a trial within a trial – to determine the admissibility of the evidence seized following the traffic stop. His lawyer called for an exclusion of the evidence – the drugs, money and weapons – on the grounds it was gathered unlawfully.
Both Beck and Bennett were called to testify.
Beck testified he received a report on Oct. 20, 2018 about a group of men selling cocaine in a blue car. The complainant couldn’t identify the men believed to be trafficking the drugs. Days earlier, another police officer received the same information through a tip from the public. While investigating the report, Beck testified he spotted a blue Volkswagen parked outside a duplex. He saw two individuals, including a “large man” with a suitcase, standing near the car before they noticed him and ran inside the duplex, he said.
Deeming the behaviour strange, Beck testified he decided to set up a traffic stop near the RCMP detachment, along the only road leaving Fort Providence.
Some 15 minutes later, Beck and Bennett pulled Paradis over as he passed the detachment. The purpose of the stop, testified Beck, was to further the drug investigation. Smallwood noted the officers failed to contact the complainant who first reported the alleged drug trafficking before stopping the vehicle. In addition, no details relayed by the complainant were corroborated independently by RCMP prior to the traffic stop.
Smallwood ruled that because the initial stop was unlawful, the subsequent detention and searches of Paradis’s vehicle were unlawful too. Paradis was not advised of the reason for his detention, or of his right to contact a lawyer, until after he exited the vehicle - several minutes after the stop had started, said Smallwood.
Despite finding the Mounties breached Paradis’s Charter rights, Smallwood ruled against excluding the evidence.
When weighing whether or not to exclude evidence following a challenge, judges must consider the seriousness of the violation, the impact of the breach on the accused and the public’s interest in seeing the matter adjudicated. Evidence is excluded if a judge or justice finds its admission would “bring the administration of justice into disrepute,” according to the federal government's website.
Smallwood, who called it a “close case,” said while the Mounties breached Paradis’s rights, they did not do so deliberately. They weren’t acting in “bad faith,” but showed a lack of recognition of Charter standards, she said.
Smallwood characterized the violations as being in the “mid to serious” range.
Turning to the evidence, Smallwood called it “highly reliable” and “critical” to the Crown’s case against Paradis. Drugs, she said, are often seized in vehicles, but rarely alongside a loaded AR-15, which is associated with “school shootings,” she said.
Smallwood couldn’t recall another case in the jurisdiction where that type of weapon was seized.
The allegations outlined in the charges against Paradis have not been proven. He is due back in a Yellowknife courtroom on May 9.