What are the policy implications of allowing the police to conduct warrantless surveillance?

In summary, I think, with respect, that Cory J.A. fails to give due weight to the policy implications of allowing the police to conduct warrantless surveillance when he states, at p. 394, that "it is only those whose conversations are concerned with various illegal activities who will be seriously concerned about the possibility of their remarks being recorded". On the contrary, the decision whether to allow or disallow this practice is fraught with the gravest of implications. To countenance this practice would not strike only at the expectations of privacy of criminals and those concerned with wrongdoing. Rather, it would undermine the expectations of privacy of all those who set store on the right to live in reasonable security and freedom from surveillance, be it electronic or otherwise. And it has long been recognized that this freedom not to be compelled to share our confidences with others is the very hallmark of a free society. Yates J., in Millar v. Taylor (1769), 4 Burr. 2303, 98 E.R. 201, states, at p. 2379 and p. 242: It is certain every man has a right to keep his own sentiments, if he pleases: he has certainly a right to judge whether he will make them public, or commit them only to the sight of his friends. …

To conclude, the Charter is not meant to protect us against a poor choice of friends. If our "friend" turns out to be an informer, and we are convicted on the strength of his testimony, that may be unfortunate for us. But the Charter is meant to guarantee the right to be secure against unreasonable search and seizure. A conversation with an informer does not amount to a search and seizure within the meaning of the Charter. Surreptitious electronic interception and recording of a private communication does. Such recording, moreover, should be viewed as a search and seizure in all circumstances save where all parties to the conversation have expressly consented to its being recorded. Accordingly the constitutionality of "participant surveillance" should fall to be determined by application of the same standard as that employed in third party surveillance, i.e., by application of the standard of reasonableness enunciated in Hunter v. Southam Inc., supra. By application of that standard, the warrantless participant surveillance engaged in by the police here was clearly unconstitutional.