Does Canada have an obligation to co-operate with international investigations?

98 Transnational crime is a growing problem in the modern world, as people, property and funds move fluidly across national borders. Some of the most costly, exploitative or dangerous crimes are committed on a worldwide scale, unconfined by state boundaries. The investigation and policing of such criminal activities requires co-operation between states. In a co-operative investigation, Canada cannot simply walk away when another country insists on following its own investigation and enforcement procedures rather than ours. That would fall short not only of Canada’s commitment to other states and the international community to provide assistance in combatting transnational crime, but also of Canada’s obligation to Canadians to ensure that crimes having a connection with Canada are investigated and prosecuted. As McLachlin J. wrote in Harrer, at para. 55: It is not reasonable to expect [police forces abroad] to comply with details of Canadian law. To insist on conformity to Canadian law would be to insist on external application of the Charter in preference to the local law. It would render prosecution of offences with international aspects difficult if not impossible. And it would undermine the ethic of reciprocity which underlies international efforts to control trans-border crime: Argentina v. Mellino, 1987 CanLII 49 (SCC), [1987] 1 S.C.R. 536, at p. 551, per La Forest J. We live in an era when people, goods and information pass from country to country with great rapidity. Law enforcement authorities, if they are to do their job, must apprehend people and intercept goods and communications wherever they may be found. Often they find themselves working with officers in foreign jurisdictions; often they are merely the recipients of information gathered independently elsewhere. . . . We need to accommodate the reality that different countries apply different rules to evidence gathering, rules which must be respected in some measure if we are to retain the ability to prosecute those whose crime and travel take them beyond our borders.