Hundreds of Ontario cases tossed, compromised after police officers violated Charter rights: report

Police tape is shown in Toronto, Tuesday, May 2, 2017. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Graeme Roy

Charges were tossed or evidence was excluded from Ontario court proceedings hundreds of times over the past decade due to police officers in urban areas violating the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, a new report examining more than 600 cases has found. 

Report co-author Sunil Gurmukh, an adjunct law professor at Western University, said in an interview after the report’s release Wednesday that people accused of criminal offences are frequently “walking free” because of violations by officers in Toronto, Ottawa and Peel, York and Durham regions. 

“Police have a tough job, but they can still get the bad guys without breaching the Charter,” he said.

“This is especially the case when officers deliberately violated the Charter or were negligent or where courts have flagged systemic issues.”

The research looked at 627 Ontario court rulings between Jan. 1, 2015 and May 31, 2025, in which police officers were found to have violated Charter rights more than 1,000 times. 

The report said in 70 per cent of cases, evidence was excluded, proceedings were stayed or a sentence was reduced — something that researchers argue undermines public trust and harms victims. 

Gurmukh noted the research did not look at cases in which a suspect was not charged or the Crown decided to withdraw charges. 

He said police forces, oversight agencies and provincial and federal governments must do more in response to rights violations by officers.

“To enhance public trust, legitimacy and safety, there must be monitoring, accountability, transparency and independent oversight.”

For starters, prosecutors should report Charter violations to police chiefs so services can conduct investigations, said Gurmukh. 

Police services and boards should track violations, report on them annually and “publicly review policies, procedures and training related to the systemic issues in our report,” Gurmukh added. 

He suggested that the provincial inspector general of policing should also conduct a broader review, noting that officers’ conduct can have significant consequences in individual cases.

“Guns, drugs, reliable evidence of child pornography and breathalyzer test results are being excluded from evidence in trials.”

Gurmukh said the most common Charter rights violations consisted of officers conducting unlawful searches and seizures or delaying suspects’ access to legal counsel. 

“These violations are preventable. We don’t live in a police state. The Charter protects all of us,” he said.

“It’s why the police can’t search our homes without reasonable grounds.”

A qualitative analysis of cases involving the Toronto Police Service and Peel Regional Police found systemic issues including racial profiling, not telling accused people about their right to a lawyer without delay upon arrest and not respecting their right to choose their own lawyer, Gurmukh said.

“Courts have criticized the Toronto Police Service for failing to bring in-custody accused ... to bail court within 24 hours of arrest,” he added.

“That systemic problem has persisted for more than 20 years. Courts have called it, quote, ‘a culture of complacency.’”

The analysis found 11 cases where police officers in Toronto and Peel Region lied or gave false testimony, Gurmukh said, including six cases that involved multiple officers doing so.

Gurmukh said the courts excluded evidence or granted a stay in 10 of those cases.

He said researchers also found 15 cases in which Toronto and Peel officers conducted unlawful investigations into alleged child sexual exploitation, and courts excluded reliable evidence from trial because an officer violated the Charter in 11 of those cases.

In a 2022 example, Gurmukh said evidence of child sexual exploitation material was thrown out in an Ontario Superior Court of Justice decision after Peel police deliberately exceeded the limits of a search warrant by staging a fake delivery and searching areas of a home that they had no authority to search. 

“Police overreach and disregard for the Charter have undermined the integrity of prosecutions,” he said, adding that this has put “the safety of children at risk.”

Toronto and Peel police did not immediately provide comment. 

This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 18, 2026.

Maan Alhmidi, The Canadian Press