Editor’s Note: This post was written as a preview of an upcoming Supreme Court of Canada decision for the Fantasy Courts website and newsletter. Photo by Andrew Lvov on Unsplash.
🚗 On Friday, March 20, 2026, the Supreme Court of Canada will release its decision in R. v. Singer. The issue is whether police responding to an impaired-driving complaint can, without a warrant, enter a private driveway and approach a parked, running vehicle when the driver is not visible. Did that conduct breach s. 8 of the Charter, requiring the evidence to be excluded?
🎯 Last week, the SCC released its decision in Quebec (Attorney General) v. Kanyinda, 2026 SCC 7. In a fractured decision, the Court allowed the appeal in part, holding that Quebec’s exclusion of refugee claimants from subsidized childcare violated s. 15 because of its discriminatory adverse effects on women refugee claimants, and could not be justified under s. 1. The Court read refugee claimants into the scheme, but rejected the Court of Appeal’s added work-permit requirement.
🤖 Only 23% of Fantasy Courts players correctly predicted the result. It looks like the small tweak to the Court of Appeal judgment, resulting in the appeal being allowed in part, is what threw most of us off. The SCCbot got it right, but for the wrong reasons.
🔮 Head over to Fantasy Courts to lock in your predictions for this week’s decision. Scroll down for details on this week’s case or a recap of last week’s judgment.
Case to Predict: Using “Implied Licence to Knock” to Investigate a Parked Vehicle
Appeal by leave from R. v. Singer, 2023 SKCA 123
What Happened?
Police received a tip that a person was driving a white truck while intoxicated. More than an hour later, officers found a white truck parked in a residential driveway with its lights on and engine running. They could not see anyone inside from the road, but still entered the driveway and looked in the vehicle. They saw the Respondent asleep across the front two seats and knocked on the window. After getting no response, they opened the doors and shook him awake.
The Respondent failed a roadside breath test and was later charged with failing or refusing to comply with a demand for a breath sample. The trial judge rejected his Charter application and convicted him, but the Saskatchewan Court of Appeal held that the police conduct was a search contrary to s. 8, excluded the evidence, and entered an acquittal.
What Was Argued at the SCC?
Appellant: The Crown argues that police were entitled to approach the vehicle to communicate with the Respondent about a recent impaired-driving complaint. In its view, that conduct either fell within the implied licence to knock or, alternatively, was justified under the ancillary powers doctrine. A vehicle parked on a driveway carries a lower privacy interest than a home, and public safety requires police to be able to investigate an unresponsive driver in a running vehicle before that danger returns to the road.
Respondent: The Respondent argues that he had a reasonable expectation of privacy while asleep and out of public view in his vehicle parked at his residence. Police crossed onto private property for the purpose of gathering evidence, which takes them outside any implied licence recognized in Evans. There were no exigent circumstances to justify entering without a warrant, the search was presumptively unreasonable, and the Court of Appeal was right to exclude the evidence.
What Else Should You Know Before Making a Prediction?
Full disclosure: my colleague, Cory Giordano, and I were counsel for the Respondent. Not one to bet against myself, you know how I’ll be making my prediction. Trying to put my bias aside, I’ll note that on its face, the facts are unhelpful. Some judges may be of the view that dismissing the appeal would make it harder for police to respond to safety concerns and may send the wrong message about impaired driving. Countering those concerns is a real problem about minimizing the sanctity of private property. Siding with the Crown could allow police to enter private property to poke around with little concrete justification. There’s a chance here for the Court to reinforce the narrowness of warrantless police powers in the curtilage of the home.
SCCbot
This season, we’re also asking the SCCbot, an AI tool that predicts Supreme Court of Canada decisions, what it thinks the Court will do. The SCCbot is currently 4 for 5. For this week, the SCCbot is saying appeal allowed with moderate confidence. It reasons that the Court may treat the truck’s plain-view presence (running, lights on) plus the impaired-driving complaint as justifying a limited approach to communicate/check welfare, resisting a bright-line rule that non-visibility turns that approach into a presumptively unlawful search.
Previous Case Recap: Quebec (Attorney General) v. Kanyinda
Quebec (Attorney General) v. Kanyinda, 2026 SCC 7
Held (6:1:1:1): Appeal allowed in part. Quebec’s exclusion of refugee claimants from subsidized childcare discriminated against women refugee claimants on the basis of sex, was not justified under s. 1, and the proper remedy was to read refugee claimants into the regulation without imposing a work-permit requirement.
Key points:
- The majority treated the case as adverse-effects sex discrimination and emphasized that intersectional realities can matter at both stages of the s. 15 analysis.
- Rowe J. agreed in the result, but would have found the law failed only at the final proportionality stage under s. 1.
- Wagner C.J. also agreed in the result, but would have resolved the case primarily on the analogous ground of refugee claimant status.
- Côté J. dissented and would have dismissed the application.
📊 This was a tough one for predictions. 23% of Fantasy Courts players were correct. Most of us had the right idea about the law being unconstitutional, but we missed that the Court of Appeal order would be tweaked slightly. In contrast, the SCCbot had the wrong idea, but got the overall result right.
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-Tom Slade