CHARTER APPLIES TO ALL

While Judge Ellen Gordon's ruling seems a marked departure from past
practice, I support her decision that border guards are not above the
law and that the Charter of Rights and Freedoms is alive, even a few
yards inside Canada.

This event seems to have angered border guards to the extent that they
say they will defy the law, until they perhaps run across another
judge who agrees with them. That is troubling.

All Canadians should reject the border guards' wild exaggerations over
this ruling. We do not abandon the Charter because it is too much trouble.

Every year, hundreds of thousands of Canadians are searched on
suspicion only and without oversight by a judge -- the very safeguard
required by the Supreme Court of Canada to make such searches reasonable.

Practically all of those suspicions turn out to be unreasonable and
unfounded.

The Aldergrove border guards are to be commended for their vigilance
and the removal of 50 kilos of drugs from the B.C. market. No question
about that.

But they should also have followed the Charter and gotten a search
warrant.

No question about that, either.

Patrick Roberts, Nelson