OTTAWA -Ten years ago, Andre Lahaie watched as the RCMP trashed his life.
In November 1998, 13 RCMP officers, wearing vests and carrying service revolvers and batons, descended on the Ottawa man’s home and warehouse.
Flashing search warrants, the officers entered the building as Lahaie’s terrified 15-year-old daughter fought to contain her hysteria.
They seized computers, business equipment and records, along with his company’s entire stock of "grey market" American satellite TV equipment, which then represented 98 per cent of his sales.
The next day, the RCMP called a news conference to display the wares, saying criminal charges would soon be laid and warning the public to steer clear of grey market dishes.
"I was treated like a criminal and thrown out to the wolves," Lahaie said Tuesday.
Within six months, his company Digital Super City Inc., the largest of its type in eastern Ontario, was out of business.
Lahaie had to declare personal bankruptcy.
Parents forbade their daughters from sleeping at his house.
"I even had a set of parents come over to my home one time and demand their child to leave," he said.
Now Lahaie has been vindicated.
In a precedent-setting ruling, an Ontario Superior Court judge found this week that the RCMP raid violated Lahaie’s Charter of Rights protection against unreasonable search and seizure.
In compensation, Justice Denis Power ordered the RCMP to pay Lahaie $100,000.
According to Lahaie’s lawyer, Joseph Obagi, it’s the largest sum awarded in a civil case for a Charter violation, far in excess of the old record of $10,000.
"I’m quite happy to see that a judge has finally agreed with the way I felt I was treated," Lahaie said. "A decision like this, especially before Christmas, is a gift on its own."
When the RCMP raided Lahaie’s premises in 1998, the law on grey market satellite dishes was in flux.
Though it was illegal to intercept and decode satellite signals without authority from their lawful distributors, lower courts differed on whether the law applied to signals originating outside Canada.
The Supreme Court ended the legal limbo in 2002, ruling that the sale of the dishes was, in fact, illegal.
But when the RCMP obtained its warrants, the officers didn’t inform authorities of the law’s uncertain status.
Comments