Case information

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Case summaries are prepared by the Office of the Registrar of the Supreme Court of Canada (Law Branch). Please note that summaries are not provided to the Judges of the Court. They are placed on the Court file and website for information purposes only.

Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms – Prescription – Can the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (“RCMP”), following incarceration of the Applicant in a third world country, raise prescription as a defense? – Is it possible to psychologically overcome a physical impossibility to act? – Were the provisions of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms as provided by sections 6, 7, 9 10(c), 11(d), 11(f), 12 and 24(1) violated insofar as RCMP willfully and intentionally targeted a Canadian citizen with the avowed purpose of having the Canadian citizen arrested, imprisoned, convicted and executed in a foreign country? – Does the protection afforded Canadian citizens by the Charter end at the border? – At the end of its 18-month operation in Canada, can the RCMP sidestep the Canadian Charter by bringing the Canadian citizen to another country to face foreign laws? – Was the Applicant entrapped in Canada as well as in Thailand pursuant to the principles of law concerning entrapment as defined by the Supreme Court of Canada in the case of R. v. Mack [1988] 2 R.C.S. 903? – Does Canada’s drug policy take precedence over the Charter, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Act, R.S.C. 1985, c. R-10 and related policy directives, the Operations Manual as well as Ministerial Directives? What are the consequences of non-compliance? – Is the RCMP responsible for the actions of its civil agents?

The Applicant, a Canadian citizen, was imprisoned in Thailand in 1989 following a sting operation involving the importation of heroin into Canada from Thailand. The Applicant now claims that he would never have engaged in such criminal activity had he not been lured into it by the RCMP. Prior to the sting operation, the Applicant had been identified as a possible drug importer by an RCMP informant. The Applicant is a former drug addict but he did not, at the time, have a criminal record. Background checks conducted by the RCMP erroneously attributed to him a number of crimes committed by his twin brother, a mistake which was subsequently corrected. The Applicant was eventually met by undercover officers portraying themselves as drug dealers in search of a source. The Applicant stated that he had a heroin source in Thailand to whom he could introduce the undercover officers. The Thai authorities were informed of same and agreed to cooperate. Throughout this time, the Applicant claims to have been subjected to a reign of terror, including insinuations on the part of the RCMP informant that the persons involved were capable of committing murder. The Applicant finally went to Thailand and set up the introduction to the Thai heroin source. He and the Thai involved were arrested by Thai police, prosecuted and convicted under Thai law. After eight and a half years of imprisonment in Thailand, the Applicant was transferred to a prison in Quebec in 1997 and was later paroled. In 2000, the Applicant instituted legal proceedings based on allegations that he was the victim of entrapment by the RCMP, and seeks damages in the amount of over 47 million dollars.