What do you do if you are stopped and questioned by the police?
You have a choice.
When you are approached by the police, you can decide whether
you will speak with them and/or give them any information, tell them
your name, or produce identification. For the most part, you do not have
to answer questions asked of you by the police and cannot be arrested
for refusing to answer.
If you lie about your name or address, however, you can be charged with obstructing justice or the police.
If you lie about your name or address, however, you can be charged with obstructing justice or the police.
In Toronto, if you
give the police your name and/or produce your identification, it is
likely that what you provide to them will be put on what the police call
a Form 306, more formally called Community Inquiry Reports. That form
will indicate what your name is, where you were when the police spoke to
you, the time and date when they spoke to you, what you said you were
doing and who you were with and other personal information. All of that
information, along with other kinds of police contact (like 911 calls),
can go into the Toronto police computer system and remain available to
police for many years.
It is also likely that if you tell the police your name, they will run a police computer check on you through the RCMP Central Repository system known as CPIC. CPIC will tell the police officer you are dealing with whether there is a warrant for your arrest and whether you are on bail, or any other information police already have. If you are on bail, CPIC will tell the officer the terms of your bail. If you are violating the terms of your bail, the officer will likely arrest you and charge you for breaching your bail. You will be held for a “show cause” hearing, at which time a decision will be made whether you will be kept in jail pending your trial(s).
In general, the police
can ask you any questions they want, but you do not have to talk to
them, show them your identification or answer their questions. The main
exception to this general rule is that it is probably advisable to
identify yourself when you are stopped and questioned by the police as
part of an investigative detention, when you are stopped on a bicycle
for a traffic offence, when you are stopped while driving a motor
vehicle or when you are being investigated for a non-criminal offence
such as drinking in a public place.
According to a
decision of the Supreme Court of Canada in a case called R. v. Mann, the
police have no right or power to stop you unless they have reasonable
grounds to believe you may have been involved in a criminal offence. If
they have such reasonable grounds, they are entitled to briefly stop you
for what is called an investigative detention.
If the police
approach you and tell you about a specific criminal offence they are
looking into and that they believe you are involved in it, in that
situation you may decide to cooperate with the police by giving them
your name and producing identification. But before you give them any
information, ask them why they have stopped you and get specific details
of the offence they are investigating.
If you are the driver
of a car stopped by the police, under the Highway Traffic Act, you must
produce your driver’s licence, car registration and insurance for the
vehicle you are driving. But note: passengers do not have to
identify themselves or answer any questions asked by the police (unless
the police are doing an investigative detention for a criminal offence).
Similarly, police
issuing tickets for bylaw offences (e.g. drinking in public,
trespassing, Highway Traffic Act offences committed by bicyclists,
etc.), can demand identification in order to ensure that they have a
correct name and address. Failing to convince the police of your
identity in this situation may give them the right to arrest you, even
if the offence itself is not a serious one.
Once stopped or
detained, the police do not have a general power to search you or to get
you to show them what you have in your pockets, or to search your bag
or knapsack. We recommend that you politely but firmly decline to be
searched. If they have grounds to arrest you, police do have a general
power to search you for any items that you might have that could be used
to harm the police or provide evidence.
The police in our city have a difficult job to do. We recommend that you deal with them as politely as possible.
