Leave to Appeal to SCC Granted

MONTREAL – Aaden Pearson, Staff Lawyer at the Canadian Civil Liberties Association released the following statement in reaction to the Supreme Court of Canada’s decision to grant leave to appeal in Attorney General of Quebec v. Luamba, a major racial profiling case dealing with police powers to conduct suspicionless and arbitrary roadside stops.

The Canadian Civil Liberties Association has worked alongside the plaintiff in this case for years. Together, they secured a landmark victory following a six-week trial in 2022, which was upheld unanimously by the Quebec Court of Appeal last year. The CCLA welcomes the opportunity to defend the Court of Appeal’s ruling on the national stage and to put an end to discriminatory police stops across Canada.

The Quebec Court of Appeal correctly recognized the discriminatory effects on racialized drivers caused by the police power to conduct arbitrary roadside stops. The Court found that art. 636 of the Code de la sécurité routière, which allows police officers to carry out these detentions, is unconstitutional, as it violates ss. 9 and 15 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The Court issued a suspended declaration of constitutional invalidity for a period of six months, and on March 31, 2025, refused to extend that suspension any further, except in relation to a narrow category of sobriety stops. As a result, the Quebec police power to conduct arbitrary traffic stops is already, in the vast majority of circumstances, invalid.

With leave to appeal to the Supreme Court granted, the Canadian Civil Liberties Association is prepared to continue to defend a landmark decision and argue that no driver in Canada should be subject to these arbitrary stops, which the government has failed to prove serve any public safety function and provide a notorious pretext for racial profiling.

CCLA is represented by our counsel Bruce Johnston, Lex Gill and Louis-Alexandre Hébert-Gosselin of Trudel Johnston & Lespérance.