I don’t comment here much anymore because law is my day job. If you look back on some of the old threads you’ll see extensive discussions with extensive quotations and citations showing how the law in Canada is, with all due respect, ridiculous. The customs and import decisions are really based on an old and bad Supreme Court of Canada case which was an appeal from a decision of the Quebec Court of Appeal that had, quite sensibly, determined that a butterfly knife ( bali to us ) is NOT a prohibited weapon because it isn’t automatic and doesn’t open by gravity alone. But in a two second oral decision read by Justice LaForest the Supreme Court said, paraphrasing from the French, “ tough merde, we agree with Justice Beauregard who dissented in the Court below and, surprise you’re guilty! Have a nice day.” For Monsieur le Justice Beauregard, whose immortal decision I’ve reproduced below with some bolding, he doesn’t care if there’s a bar or safety. He doesn’t care if you have to be a ninja to open it one handed. The purpose of the law is to keep ninjas and the switchblade menace off the streets. Subsequent decisions have used this rewsoning to ban knives abused or adjusted so that then open with a good whack or wrist flick even though they aren’t designed for it on the same logic that, hey, a criminal or a ninja could turn it into a gravity knife just like I did. I have no idea what mythical menace they think they are eliminating but the switchblade hysteria was always more than a little stupid, with all due respect. Anyways, this is what we are up against. You have to assuage the authorities’[ concerns for now and that is surely something that can be discussed. But eventually you either need smarter government ( good luck with that) or another split decision in a Court of Appeal so you can get back to the Supreme Court of Canada on a good case to get something a little more sophisticated intellectually and fair for the vast majority of people who use knives responsibly.
You might note the comment at the end regarding mens rea and possession
Regina v. Vaughan
60 C.C.C. (3d) 87 ( Que. C.A. )
Reversed 69 C.C.C. (3d) 576 (SCC) [Dec 10, 1991 ]
Beauregard J.A. (dissenting) (translation): The appellant appeals from a judgment of a judge of the Court of Sessions of the Peace (Montreal, November 3, 1986, Gerard Girouard J.), who found her guilty of having been in possession on May 31, 1986, of a prohibited weapon contrary to ss. 82(1)(b) and 88(1)(a) of the Criminal Code, R.S.C. 1970, c. C-34.
The act of possession is admitted and the principal question in issue is whether the weapon in question is one of those described in s. 82(1)(b).
According to this section, the following are prohibited:
(b)
Any knife that has a blade that opens automatically by gravity or centrifugal force or by hand pressure applied to a button, spring or other device in or attached to the handle of the knife...
According to the indictment and the police officer who testified, the knife which the appellant had in her possession was a ''butterfly knife''. When the knife is closed, the blade is contained in a handle which also serves as its carrying case. The handle is divided longitudinally into two parts. At their base, these two parts are joined by a pin which also holds the blade to the two parts of the handle. It should be added that at the head of these two parts of the handle there is a small bar or clip used to keep the two parts of the handle closed. When the knife is open, the same bar keeps the two parts of the handle together; but, the bar is not really necessary because the two parts of the handle are held by the hand and fingers of the person using the knife. One can obviously open the knife with his two hands but it can also be done with only one hand. It suffices to easily open the bar then, holding one of the two parts of the handle, to apply a centrifugal force which frees the blade. However, the centrifugal force also frees the second part of the handle and the user must raise his fingers in order for this second part of the handle to meet the first part; this necessitates some dexterity.
Despite the fact that it is necessary to first raise the bar of the case and the fact that the user of the knife must then bring the two parts of the handle together once the blade has come out of the knife by the centrifugal force, the trial judge concluded that the knife in question was a knife that had a blade which opened automatically by centrifugal force.
In my humble view, the meaning of the word ''automatically'', found in s. 82(1)(b) is elucidated by the expressions ''by gravity'', ''centrifugal force'', ''by hand pressure applied to a button'', ''spring'' or the more general expression ''other device in or attached to the handle of the knife''. In the present case, the automatic character in the opening of the blade is brought about by the application of centrifugal force.
The appellant submits that the trial judge erred in this regard. She admits that the knife blade can be opened by centrifugal force but she submits that the two additional operations necessary for that (raising the bar of the case and joining the two parts of the handle) make it so that the knife does not open automatically. The appellant also notes that the purpose of these provisions in the Criminal Code is to prevent a person from being able to transform a penknife into a knife in no time at all.
Despite his impeccable work, counsel for the appellant has not succeeded in convincing me that the trial judge erred. The existence of a bar is not relevant. This bar can be opened in the wink of an eye with the tip of a finger or by passing the head of the handle over one's clothes. The blade of the knife can then open automatically by centrifugal force and the fact that at the same time the user of the knife is obliged to bring the two parts of the handle together does not, in my view, eliminate the automatic nature of the opening of the blade by centrifugal force. Counsel for the respondent referred as to a judgment of Catliff J. of the County Court of Vancouver in R. v. Giroux, No. CC860313, May 6, 1986 [summarized 16 W.C.B. 501], who, in the case of knife of the same type, came to the same conclusion as the trial judge.
Counsel for the appellant in the alternative submits that the trial judge did not ask himself whether the appellant had a guilty intent.
A proof of guilty intent results in the present case from evidence of possession of the knife. Possession was not contested. From this possession, which was not otherwise explained, the judge could deduce that the appellant had the intent to possess the knife.
As a result, I would dismiss the appeal [Emphasis added – hjk]”
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