UNREASONABLE SEARCH, DUDE

Run-of-the mill local-government fire inspections should not be
turned into home invasions, so as to evade the legal requirements for
search warrants. Ten municipalities in the Lower Mainland of British
Columbia have recently resorted to bylaws as an almost random method
of cracking down on marijuana-growing operations. As a result,
innocent homeowners have been inflicted with oppressive four-figure
fees; some have had mortgage applications refused, and their names
have been flagged as security risks at the U.S. border.

Port Coquitlam and Langley are having second thoughts. The Mission,
B.C., city council has belatedly placed a one-month moratorium on
these raids, but Mission's Controlled Substance Property Bylaw should
simply be repealed. Its very name is telling. These inspections
originally arose from a reasonable concern that a household's
abnormally high electricity usage might point to a fire hazard - of
course it could also signify, for example, a Jacuzzi left running for
a long time.

Mission already had a sensible enough fire-prevention bylaw, but the
concern of the new, offending bylaw with "controlled substance
properties" and "clandestine drug labs" is plain on its face. It
institutes "public safety inspection teams" - not only a routine fire
inspector, but also an electrician and a building inspector and -
last but not least - an RCMP officer out at the curb waiting to leap
into action.

The law should be enforced against grow-ops, but there are other ways
to detect their presence than large electricity bills. The Criminal
Code sets a standard for the issuance of search warrants: reasonable
grounds for suspicion. The attempt to get around this by way of
municipal bylaws is causing grave inconvenience to householders and
is a violation of a long-established right.

The Charter right to be free from unreasonable search descends from a
1604 judgment in which Sir Edward Coke wrote, "The house of every one
is to him as his castle and fortress, as well for his defence against
injury and violence as for his repose." People who are extravagant
with landscape lighting or home appliances should not be arbitrarily
treated as criminal suspects. This practice is a peculiar,
small-minded, but outrageous Canadian twist on the war against drugs.