It has been a few years now, and sadly the pace of asset forefeiture cases in Canada seem to be heading towards their American counterparts examples. The courts, or at least some of them, have not been so readily accepting of these cases as their American bretheren (though American courts are finally developing some hesitation in accepting them).
In Canada, the Alberta courts are emerging as the pro-liberty courts when it comes to this issue. In AB v. Kouch, the Court of Appeal of AB (Justices Conrad, O'Ferrall, and Brown) took what I call a Dicey-legality-esque approach to the question. Instead of tackling the grand of question of the legality or wisdom of asset forfeiture, they held the state's feet to the fire and asked that their claims be proven. In this case, the court held that there was no proof of the underlying claim. Mere assertions were not sufficient (something the trial judge had accepted).
In Ontario, the story is different.
The Court of Appeal of AB's decision is a per curiam judgment, which is the style in Alberta these days, so one cannot discern who wrote it (probably all there had something to do with various parts of it). But, given that Justice Brown was on the panel, there are some parallels in the philosophy of the judgment and an earlier judgment issued by then QB Justice Brown. Regardless of who wrote the judgment, kudos to the Court of Appeal for taking the rule of law seriously.
Again, to be clear on my views: prove the crime up front and punish up front. End of story. That is fair, makes us all better off, and is also tough on crime. Politicians have to learn to resist legislating for optics.
