I'm not going to go into great detail on this. I've looked at this very carefully. It seems to me that it's authorizing a warrantless search of any vehicles. It uses the words “at the penitentiary”. I'm assuming this means that for any vehicle that's parked in a parking lot associated with the penitentiary, the institutional head can issue, in effect, their own form of search warrant without obtaining one through the courts, and that every vehicle on the premises can be searched in order to locate and seize contraband or other evidence that's available. If there's a real circumstance there, search warrants from the appropriate authorities are more and more readily available. As those who practise law will know, they can be obtained by telephone if necessary. They can be authorized by telephone. There's appropriate and significant provision already in the law for this.
The Charter of Rights and Freedoms makes an important provision for the freedom from unreasonable search and seizure. Is it reasonable, I ask rhetorically, for someone who happens to have a vehicle in the parking lot of a penitentiary to have that vehicle subject to search by the head of a correctional facility without a warrant? That's something that goes beyond, in our view, what's required.