Police Officer’s Handbook
Detention
Dual Purpose Traffic Stops
A dual purpose stop is one where police have an interest in addition to mere highway traffic concerns – this might be a hunch of criminal activity or for the purpose of identifying occupants of a vehicle. Generally speaking, dual purpose stops are random in terms of highway traffic act concerns – initiated to check for licence or insurance – but targeted in terms of criminal investigation concerns. In short, they are stops made without grounds of any illegal activity but lawful under highway traffic act legislation.
In Ontario, Manitoba, Alberta and Newfoundland randomly initiated dual purpose traffic stops are permissible – that is, there is no obligation for police to identify an independent or specific highway traffic act violation. So long as the stop includes, as a purpose, a highway traffic act concern, such as checking for a licence and police do not exceed their authority within the scope of that concern, during the stop, the stop will be valid. Of course, if during that stop police form grounds to initiate an investigative detention or arrest, they are permitted to do soi the normal course: R v Gonzales, 2017 ONCA 543; R v Morris, 2013 ONCA 223; Brown v Durham Regional Police Force, 1998 CarswellOnt 5020 (CA); R v Ali, 2016 ABCA 261; R v Schrenk, 2010 MBCA 38; R v Dhuna, 2009 ABCA 103. This approach seems to be the proper one and consistent with principles considered in R v Nolet, 2010 SCC 24.
In Saskatchewan in order for a dual purpose stop to be valid, an officer must meet the criteria for an investigative detention – that is, the officer must have a reasonable suspicion that the person is engaged in criminal conduct – in order to initiate a random highway traffic act stop: R v Mohamed, 2018 SKQB 151; R v Houben, 2006 SKCA 129.
In British Columbia it seems that such a stop may only be inititiated based on an independent traffic act violation: R v Kaddoura, 2009 BCCA 113. But this approach is not universally followed in that province: R v Sidhu, 2018 BCPC 124.