B.C. Civil Liberties Association boss says the practice of randomly searching student lockers is a violation of Charter privacy rights
Using drug-sniffing dogs to randomly search student lockers at Abbotsford schools is a violation of Charter privacy rights and is illegal, according to David Eby, the executive director of the B.C. Civil Liberties Association.
"They don't need a warrant ... but they still need reasonable grounds to believe the students have broken school rules, because the school is still government and the students are still citizens," he said.
Eby suggested the policy also shows an appalling lack of respect to children, and highlights the failure of the Abbotsford School District and parents to properly educate children about the dangers of drug use.
"If the only responsibility of the Abbotsford school board with respect to students was eliminating potential liability issues around the school, that would be one thing. But their job is actually education."
An adjunct professor of law at the University of B.C., Eby said all the drug-sniffing dogs in the world won't prevent kids from doing drugs.
"In terms of combating drugs in schools, the most effective technique is going to be education, because as soon as they leave the school grounds ... they are going to be exposed to drugs and the opportunity to use and purchase drugs."
When asked if any drugs had been found in Abbotsford schools using the dogs, Abbotsford Board of Education chair Cindy Schafer was unsure and said measuring the effectiveness of a policy of this type is problematic at best.
"Our goal is we want to keep schools safe, to measure whether or not that's been effective yet, I don't know how we could measure that," she said.
With budget concerns, cutbacks and possible school closures looming over many school districts, Schafer said the price of implementing the policy is negligible.
"This year the cost was $6,500," she said, "In a district of our size, the cost is minimal."
Vancouver school board communications manager David Weir said the board has never employed sniffer dogs, and has no plans on implementing them.
Instead, schools employ Vancouver police officers as liaisons who are a regular hallway presence.
"We do not use [dogs] in our schools, and we are not aware of any conversations or requests for us to consider using them," he said.
Margrett Donley is the owner of Canadian K9 Detection Security & Investigations Ltd., a Vancouver company contracted by the Abbotsford Board of Education to perform the drug sweeps.
Donley said searches of this type are proactive, and the dogs are more than 90 per cent accurate.
"This is not searching for criminals, that's not what this is about.
"This is about protecting our children," Donley said.
Parents and students like the idea of being protected, said Donley, regardless if the criminals do, in fact, turn out to be children and youth.
"There is not a child I have met in my life -- that goes out to be a drug dealer or a drug mule -- that decides one day that that is what they are going to do," she said.
"They're influenced to do it." Eby thinks the tactics go too far.
"I don't know what stage we've got to, where we are using drug-sniffing dogs on our own children.
"It's a failure of drug policy and a failure of drug education among youth," he said.
In matters of safety, school authorities must be afforded a broad measure of discretion, Sgt. Mike Novakowski with the Abbotsford police said.
"Schools are a microcosm of a community. What happens in homes and on streets will, at some level, find its way into our schools.
"The use of drug-sniffer dogs is one tool to assist school authorities in ferreting out [drugs]," Novakowski said.
Schafer said the school board has received no feedback on the policy from parents or students.
"We actually haven't heard anything."
The board did due diligence in implementing the policy, Schafer said.
"You can't deny that in our community there are some things that have been problematic. Drugs is one of them, and gangs.
"We just want the message to get out there that we do not want the sharing and trafficking of drugs at school."
