After passing the lockers, the officer then had a drug-sniffing dog sniff the unattended backpacks lined up against a wall in the gymnasium.

At trial, the accused brought an application for exclusion of the evidence, arguing that his rights under section 8 of the Charter had been violated.

The youth court judge found that the police lacked any grounds for reasonable suspicion and excluded the evidence.

In the context of a routine criminal investigation, the police are entitled to use sniffer dogs based on a "reasonable suspicion".

In this case, the search was executed unreasonably, and thereby constituted a Charter breach, on the basis of which the evidence obtained may be excluded.

In sniffer dog situations, the police are generally required to take quick action guided by on the spot observations.

In circumstances where this generally occurs, it is not feasible to subject the "sniffer dog’s" sniff to prior judicial authorization.

The trade-off for permitting the police to deploy their dogs on a "reasonable suspicion" standard without a warrant is that if this procedure is abused and sniffer dog searches proceed without reasonable suspicion based on objective facts, the consequence could well tip the balance against the admission of the evidence if it is established under section 24(2) of the Charter that, having regard to all the circumstances, the admission of it in the proceedings would bring the administration of justice into disrepute.

Deschamps and Rothstein JJ found there was no need to determine whether section 8 of the Charter was violated because the dog sniff of the backpack at the school did not amount to a search.