DRUG SEARCHES WILL HAPPEN

The Edmonton public school board has agreed to a pilot project with
the police that will allow high school principals to bring in a
drug-sniffing dog to do searches. While the board claims the program
has the wide support of parents, it has angered civil libertarians,
who argue it's an invasion of students' privacy.

But critics will be disheartened to learn that there's nothing they
can really do about it. Eight years ago, the Supreme Court of Canada
ruled that school officials have wide latitude to conduct searches if
they think school rules or criminal laws are being broken, and that
students don't have the same privacy rights as the rest of us.

The case, known as R v. M, stemmed from an incident in Nova Scotia in
which the vice-principal was given "reasonably reliable information
from students" that another student was intending to sell drugs on
school property.

The vice-principal searched the students in the presence of a
plainclothes RCMP constable. The vice-principal seized a hidden bag of
pot and the constable arrested the student.

At trial, the judge ruled that the student's charter rights had been
violated by the search and that the vice-principal was acting as an
agent of the police.

The judge threw out the search and the charge was subsequently
dropped. The Crown appealed and the appeal court ordered a new trial,
which prompted the case to be appealed again to the Supreme Court.

Canada's highest court not only didn't side with the student's claim
that his rights had been violated, it ended up giving broad powers to
school officials in its decision.

For starters, it said that the privacy rights of students are
diminished by the fact that, well, they're students. "Students know
that teachers and school authorities are responsible for providing a
safe school environment and maintaining order and discipline in the
school. Students know that this may sometimes require searches of
students and their personal effects and the seizure of prohibited items."

As a result, the court said, "a different standard should be applied
to searches by school authorities" than would apply to the police and
"where the criminal law is involved, evidence found by a teacher or
principal should not be excluded because the search would have been
unreasonable if conducted by the police."

The Supremes said that while warrants are necessary before searches
can be conducted in virtually every other facet of law enforcement,
"to require a warrant or any other prior authorization be obtained for
the search would clearly be impractical and unworkable in a school
environment. Teachers and principals must be able to react quickly and
effectively to problems that arise in school, to protect their
students and to provide the orderly atmosphere required for learning."

Continued the court: "A search by school officials of a student under
their authority need not be based upon reasonable and probable
grounds. Rather, in these circumstances, a search may be undertaken if
there are reasonable grounds to believe that a school rule has been or
is being violated, and that evidence of the violation will be found if
the location or the person of the student is searched."

Moreover, said the court, "A teacher or principal should not be
required to obtain a warrant to search a student and thus the absence
of a warrant in these circumstances will not create a presumption that
the search was unreasonable." Indeed, said the court, all a school
official needs is "information received from just one student that the
school authority considers credible" and "reasonable grounds" to
believe a search would uncover something that breaks school
regulations.

Now the court did also say that school officials cannot willy-nilly
start ripping apart lockers looking for contraband. "The search itself
must be carried out in a reasonable manner. It should be conducted in
a sensitive manner and be minimally invasive." Well, that's good to
know.

Parents who support the school board's decision to start this project
will welcome the fact that country's highest court has essentially
given its stamp of approval already.

And the critics can carp, but there's little else they can do.