No Scent-Tracking Dogs for Random Searches in Canada

The Supreme Court of Canada recently ruled police cannot use scent-tracking dogs for random searches. According to the Meridian Booster May 2, 2008 article,("Ruling Won't Stop Dog Searches") 'The ruling will stop police from using sniffer dogs to do random searches for illegal drugs, citing the right to privacy as the reason, but Sgt. Ken Marchand says Lloydminster police only use the dogs to search for suspects or under the premise of a search warrant."

The article adds, "While the sniffer dogs have been used to search for illegal drugs on school property, Michael Diachuk, director of education for the Lloydminster Public School Division says they do not conduct random searches. 'When we became engaged with the local RCMP and the dog handler, one of the things that he warned us right from the get-go, if we were intending upon doing random searches in our organization or schools, that he wasn't interested,' said Diachuk, adding random searches are seen as an infringement on the rights of students. Instead, the LPSD makes records of the students who have been suspended, whether for drugs or alcohol and uses that information to substantiate the searches. 'What we do, in fact, is that we look at the frequency of the infractions we are catching students,' said Diachuk. 'If we feel at any point in time that we see our numbers warranting that we have the need for the police dog service to come in and do search of our schools and they are available at that time, then we will proceed, because, in fact, what we are doing is not a random search."

The article notes, "If students are found in the possession of an illegal substance, they receive a suspension, which Diachuk says is sometimes adjusted accordingly if they agree to visit one of the counselors at the Slim Thorpe Centre."