I fully agree that all evidence should be dismissed where it is shown the Police ,knowingly and with forethought,breached the charter in order to gain evidence.I do have a problem with evidence being dismissed in all occasions where it can be shown that the Police acted in good faith at the time the evidence was seized.

Of course when i am off duty and with my family and friends ,i want the full protection of the charter applied to all of us if we are confronted by the state for some reason.Even though i do have some reservation about evidence being dismissed in all occasions of charter breaches,i do have to agree with the SCC ruling in this matter.Due to the immense powers given to the Police by the state and the trust given to the Police by the public,we are expected to and must abide by the strict rule of law.If we don’t,who else will.

“[T]he matrices of facts at issue in some cases are so particular, indeed so unique, that decisions about whether they satisfy legal tests do not have any great precedential value. If a court were to decide that driving at a certain speed on a certain road under certain conditions was negligent, its decision would not have any great value as a precedent. In short, as the level of generality of the challenged proposition approaches utter particularity, the matter approaches pure application, and hence draws nigh to being an unqualified question of mixed law and fact.”
– Canada (Director of Investigation and Research) v. Southam, [1997] 1 S.C.R. 748 at para. 37.

“We reiterate that it is not the role of appellate courts to second-guess the weight to be assigned to the various items of evidence. If there is no palpable and overriding error with respect to the underlying facts that the trial judge relies on to draw the inference, then it is only where the inference-drawing process itself is palpably in error that an appellate court can interfere with the factual conclusion. The appellate court is not free to interfere with a factual conclusion that it disagrees with where such disagreement stems from a difference of opinion over the weight to be assigned to the underlying facts.

…

To summarize, a finding of negligence by a trial judge involves applying a legal standard to a set of facts, and thus is a question of mixed fact and law. Matters of mixed fact and law lie along a spectrum. Where, for instance, an error with respect to a finding of negligence can be attributed to the application of an incorrect standard, a failure to consider a required element of a legal test, or similar error in principle, such an error can be characterized as an error of law, subject to a standard of correctness. Appellate courts must be cautious, however, in finding that a trial judge erred in law in his or her determination of negligence, as it is often difficult to extricate the legal questions from the factual. It is for this reason that these matters are referred to as questions of “mixed law and fact”. Where the legal principle is not readily extricable, then the matter is one of “mixed law and fact” and is subject to a more stringent standard. The general rule, as stated in Jaegli Enterprises, supra, is that, where the issue on appeal involves the trial judge’s interpretation of the evidence as a whole, it should not be overturned absent palpable and overriding error.”
– Housen v. Nikolaisen, [2002] 2 S.C.R. 235 at paras. 23, 36.

“While there can be no doubt that the existence of reasonable and probable grounds is grounded in the factual findings of the trial judge, the issue of whether the facts as found by the trial judge amount at law to reasonable and probable grounds is a question of law. As with any issue on appeal that requires the court to review the underlying factual foundation of a case, it may understandably seem at first blush as though the issue of reasonable and probable grounds is a question of fact. However, this Court has repeatedly affirmed that the application of a legal standard to the facts of the case is a question of law: see R. v. Araujo, 2000 SCC 65, [2000] 2 S.C.R. 992, at para. 18; R. v. Biniaris, 2000 SCC 15, [2000] 1 S.C.R. 381, at para. 23. In our view, the summary conviction appeal judge erred in failing to distinguish between the trial judge’s findings of fact and his ultimate ruling that those facts were insufficient, at law, to constitute reasonable and probable grounds. Although the trial judge’s factual findings are entitled to deference, the trial judge’s ultimate ruling is subject to review for correctness.”
– R. v. Shepherd, 2009 SCC 35 at para. 20.

I’ll admit I’ve only spent a few seconds thinking about this issue, but to me the application of the facts of Sheppard to the question of whether those facts gave rise to RPG is a textbook example of a question of mixed fact and law that is owed deference. What am I missing here?

I am left a little perplexed by the finding in Suberu that there was no detention and I am left wondering why “all the circumstances” – as the majority chimed throughout Grant – does not include considerations such as the particular characteristics or circumstances of the individual where relevant…” when considering the impact of the breach on the Charter interests of the (particular) accused, under the new part-II of the 24(2) test.