The Constitutional Stopping of Motor Vehicles in Canada and the United States: A Comparative Analysis

When can the police constitutionally stop a motor vehicle in the United States of America and Canada? In this column, I intend to examine this question through a comparative analysis that considers the law in both countries. As will be seen, the power of the police to stop a motor vehicle in Canada is significantly greater than the power of the police to do so in the United States. I intend to illustrate this proposition by considering the most recent decision of the Supreme Court of the United States on this issue (Kanas v. Glover, 140 S.Ct.

1183 (2020 , and then the law in Canada. I will also consider how Glover would likely have been decided in Canada. Finally, I will end by considering how the issue of “racial profiling” has affected the stopping of motorists by the police in Canada. Let us start with the facts in Glover.