Search - contravention

Counsel for the applicants succinctly sets out as follows in his pre-hearing brief the grounds upon which he relies for a finding that the warrants were invalidly issued and that they should be quashed: (a) Section 43 of the Criminal Code does not authorize the issuance of warrants in respect of offences against federal enactments other than the Criminal Code; (b) Even if subsection 27(2) of the Interpretation Act, R.S.C. 1970, c. 1-23, extends the scope of s. 443 of the Criminal Code to offences against certain other federal statutes, it does not extend the application of s. 443 to investigation of offences against the Income Tax Act; (c) Alternatively, the warrants are invalid because the documentary and other material on which the informant relied was obtained illegally in contravention of ss. 7 and 8 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms; (d) Alternatively, if the warrants were found to be validly issued pursuant to s. 443 of the Criminal Code, they are invalid for failure to be specific; and the following grounds for his contention that the detention orders are invalid and should be quashed: (e) There was nothing put before the learned Provincial Court Judge upon which he could be satisfied that a detention order should issue; (f) No detention order was ever signed by the learned Provincial Court Judge seized with the matter resulting in loss of jurisdiction; and (g) A detention order made in respect of articles seized pursuant to an invalid warrant is a nullity. ... In view of my findings it becomes unnecessary to rule upon other issues raised in the application, viz., as to whether the warrants may have been invalid either due to a failure to be sufficiently specific in their terms or because the documentary and other material on which the informant relied in taking them out may have been obtained illegally in contravention of sections 7 and 8 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, or as to whether the purported detention orders dated December 9 did in fact amount to valid detention orders. ...