ABSTRACT

In this chapter, the author discusses how the Supreme Court of Canada administers police powers. It argues that the Supreme Court of Canada has in some contexts articulated a Charter of surveillance. The reasons for this development are apparent in the risks and threats that the Court articulates in secure spaces such as high schools and mass transportation hubs. The chapter examines claims principally in the development of Canadian search and seizure case law. The judicial articulations are reconstitutions of entitlements and rights. The expected powers held by citizen and state are reoriented after these liminal adjudications and powers are redistributed in the wake of the judicial decision. The examination of the ancillary police powers doctrine is now well-mined terrain, and emerges originally from British common law. The concept of reasonable expectation of privacy first came to light in one of the most important early Charter search and seizure cases, Hunter v. Southam.