Drug Trafficking Lawyers Toronto

A person is deemed to have trafficked a drug if they sell, administer, give, transfer, transport, send or deliver the substance to another, sell an authorization to obtain it, or offer to do any of those things. This means that even buying drugs for a friend and delivering them can be considered trafficking under Canadian law.

Possession is having a controlled substance for personal use. Trafficking is the transfer, sale or distribution of that substance to someone else — or an offer to do so. The line between the two is often quantity, packaging and the surrounding circumstances.

There is no threshold quantity in the Act. Trafficking itself is about the act of transferring or offering to transfer, so a single hand-to-hand sale of a tiny amount is a trafficking charge. Quantity matters on a possession-for-the-purpose charge, where it is one of the pieces of circumstantial evidence from which the Crown asks a court to infer an intent to traffic, along with packaging, cash, scales, debt lists and multiple phones.

Offers to traffic drugs are considered the same as actually trafficking the drug. Even if the person making the offer had no realistic possibility to obtain the drugs at all, he would still be guilty of drug trafficking. For example, a charge of trafficking is made out if the accused offers to sell drugs to an undercover officer, even though in fact the accused's intention was not to sell, or deliver, drugs, but to cheat the buyer by ripping him off.

Selling something like baby powder but calling it cocaine can meet the definition of trafficking by making an offer to traffic. The prosecutor need not prove that the substance was in fact a drug or a narcotic, as long as it is proven that the accused held out or represented the substance as a drug or a narcotic. Section 5(5) of the Act puts this beyond argument for a trafficking charge.

To convict on a trafficking charge, the Crown must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the accused engaged in one of the trafficking acts (sell, give, transfer, transport, send, deliver, or offer), that the substance was a drug controlled by the CDSA, that the accused knew the substance was a controlled drug or was reckless or wilfully blind as to its nature, and the identity of the accused.

Possession for the purpose of trafficking (often called “P4P”) is a separate offence under section 5(2) of the CDSA. The Crown has to prove possession of the substance and an intent to traffic — usually inferred from the quantity, the way the drugs were packaged, the presence of cash, scales, debt lists, or multiple cell phones. The defence often centres on whether the inference of an intent to traffic can be drawn beyond a reasonable doubt, or whether the evidence is just as consistent with personal use.

Normally, the prosecutor has the burden of proving why a person accused of a criminal offence should be detained in custody pending their trial. That is not the case with the most serious drug charges, which shift the burden onto the accused to show why they should be released. This “reverse onus” placed on an accused person at a bail hearing makes it more difficult for a person facing serious drug charges to obtain bail. It applies under section 515(6)(d) of the Criminal Code to any CDSA offence punishable by life — Schedule I or II trafficking, possession for the purpose, importing and production. For more on the bail process in general, read our page on “obtaining bail” or on changing bail conditions.

Trafficking a Schedule I or II drug carries a maximum penalty of life in prison. In determining the type of sentence to be given, a judge will examine the number of times a person trafficked drugs, the type of drug sold, the quantity of drug sold and the person’s prior history with the police, among other factors.

No. Parliament repealed every mandatory minimum sentence in the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act in November 2022, and the 2026 Protecting Victims Act did not restore them. Until then, one-year and two-year minimums applied to trafficking in specified aggravating circumstances. Several of those circumstances are now aggravating factors under section 10(2) of the Act instead, so they still push a sentence up — they simply no longer set a floor.

Yes, in the right case. The restrictions that once barred conditional sentences for drug offences were repealed in 2022. A conditional sentence is available where the court would impose less than two years, is satisfied that serving it in the community would not endanger the community, and the offence is not a criminal organization offence prosecuted by indictment. A discharge is not available, because the maximum for a Schedule I or II offence is life.

Common defences include Charter challenges to the police investigation — particularly the validity of search warrants, wiretap authorizations, and the manner of search under section 8; lack of knowledge of the substance or mistake about what the substance was; no transfer and no agreement to transfer (the conduct fell short of the offence); identity (the Crown cannot prove the accused was the trafficker); and, in narrow circumstances, entrapment by police during an undercover investigation. Continuity and the reliability of the drug analysis can also be live issues.

Not before you have spoken to a lawyer. You have the right to remain silent, and on arrest or detention section 10(b) of the Charter gives you the right to speak to a lawyer without delay and to be told of that right.

The police are allowed to keep asking questions after you say you do not want to talk, so the right to silence has to be asserted and then kept to. Anything you say can be used as evidence, including an explanation that seems harmless at the time.

No. To detain someone to investigate a drug offence, police need reasonable grounds to suspect, in all the circumstances, that the person is connected to a particular crime, and the detention has to be reasonably necessary. A hunch based on an officer’s intuition or experience is not enough.

A person detained for investigation must be told why, and does not have to answer questions. A detention without those grounds is arbitrary under section 9 of the Charter, and evidence found as a result of it can be excluded under section 24(2).

Sometimes, but the Crown has to justify it. A search without a warrant is presumed unreasonable under section 8 of the Charter, and the Crown must show on a balance of probabilities that the search was authorized by law and carried out reasonably. The usual justifications are a search incident to a lawful arrest, consent, and urgency: section 11(7) of the CDSA allows a warrantless search only where the grounds for a warrant exist but exigent circumstances make getting one impracticable.

A phone searched on arrest is held to a stricter standard. The search must be truly incidental to the arrest, limited to what that purpose requires (generally recent messages, photos and the call log), and recorded in detailed notes of what was examined and how. Where the grounds for a search came from a confidential informant, the court asks whether the tip was compelling, whether the source was credible and whether police corroborated it, and a challenge to the search often turns on those three questions.

Not necessarily. There is no mandatory minimum, so the sentence turns on the drug, the quantity, the number of transactions, the accused’s record, any aggravating factor under section 10(2) of the Act, and the accused’s role. Courts look at where the accused sat in the supply chain and whether they owned and profited from the drugs or were carrying or selling them for someone else. Large-scale commercial trafficking is treated very seriously: in R v Parranto, 2021 SCC 46, the Supreme Court upheld sentences of 10 and 14 years for wholesale fentanyl trafficking.

At the other end of the range, a conditional sentence served in the community is available where the sentence is under two years, and many cases resolve by a withdrawal or a plea to a lesser or different charge. Part of the defence is contesting the Crown’s account of the accused’s role, because that account drives the sentence it asks for.

It can apply to. Anything used in or derived from a designated substance offence can be forfeited as offence-related property, and proceeds of crime can be forfeited under section 462.37 of the Criminal Code on conviction. For a CDSA trafficking, importing or production charge prosecuted by indictment there is also a reverse-onus forfeiture: where the court finds a ten-year pattern of criminal activity for material benefit, or that lawful income cannot account for the property, the property is forfeited unless you establish that it is not proceeds of crime.