The Federal Court has struck down a proposed class action filed by RCMP officers who alleged their privacy rights were violated when radio communications were recorded without their consent during a criminal investigation.
In a ruling that addresses both a motion to strike and a certification motion, the court found the plaintiffs failed to establish a reasonable cause of action under any of their legal claims: breach of Charter rights, breach of fiduciary duty, intrusion upon seclusion, and negligence.
The case involved two RCMP officers who sought to represent a proposed class of Mounties who alleged their communications were recorded without consent from 1982 to the present — a period spanning more than 40 years.
The alleged privacy breach
The plaintiffs, Corporal P.D. and Sergeant M.V., alleged that from October 2017 to early 2020, the RCMP and other government agents recorded 557 days of radio conversations between the plaintiffs and other RCMP members working in New Brunswick (J-Division) while they performed their duties during an organized crime investigation.
These recordings were later provided to the Public Prosecution Service of Canada (PPSC) and other RCMP members. The court noted the initial disclosure occurred during “routine disclosure to the PPSC that takes place in the course of criminal investigations.”
The PPSC subsequently became concerned that the recordings demonstrated “evidence may have been mishandled and not disclosed by the RCMP members in J-Division.” This led to an internal investigation, which ultimately did not find any fault on the part of the plaintiffs.
Pension benefits bar one plaintiff’s claim
The court dismissed Cpl. P.D.’s claims entirely based on section 9 of the Crown Liability and Proceedings Act, which establishes Crown immunity where “a pension or compensation has been paid or is payable” for the same event forming the basis of a claim.
Evidence showed Cpl. P.D. applied for disability benefits in May 2021 for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and his application specifically referenced the alleged privacy breach as one of the incidents contributing to his condition.
The court concluded that “the Alleged Privacy Breach formed part of the factual foundation for Cpl. P.D.’s pension application and the resulting payment of benefits as compensation for his development of PTSD.” This barred his ability to pursue the claim.
However, Sgt. M.V.’s claim was not similarly barred because his pension benefits for PTSD predated the alleged privacy breach and weren’t connected to it.
No reasonable expectation of privacy
The court rejected the plaintiffs’ section 8 Charter claim, finding they had no reasonable expectation of privacy in their work-related radio communications.
“As explained in Campbell, the private nature of the subject matter is a critical factor in establishing a reasonable expectation of privacy, as the purpose of section 8 is to protect a biographical core of personal information that individuals in a free and democratic society would wish to maintain and control from dissemination to the state,” the court wrote.
The court noted the recordings involved “radio conversations between on-duty RCMP members during an organized crime investigation, discussing police operations and information related to confidential informants.” It found this subject matter did not engage section 8 Charter protections since it wasn’t personal to the plaintiffs.
The court also cited disclosure obligations in criminal proceedings as further support that officers would not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in these communications.
No fiduciary duty established
The court similarly rejected claims of breach of fiduciary duty, noting that a fiduciary duty “will generally be imposed on the Crown only in limited and special circumstances.”
While the plaintiffs argued there was “an express and implied undertaking by Canada to protect the Class Members’ right to privacy” and that “the fiduciary obligation is an implied term of employment contracts,” the court found no basis for such a duty.
The court pointed out that RCMP members “are not employees, but rather are statutory office holders” appointed under the RCMP Act, and the plaintiffs failed to identify any statutory language that would establish such a fiduciary duty.
Intrusion upon seclusion and negligence claims fail
The court struck the intrusion upon seclusion claim for the same reasons as the Charter claim, finding the subject matter of the recordings didn’t involve the plaintiffs’ private affairs or concerns.
As for negligence, the court found no reasonable foreseeability that RCMP officers would “suffer emotional and psychological harm from the recording and sharing of communications that took place between police officers during their criminal investigation duties.”
The court noted the absence of any jurisprudence recognizing a duty of care to protect the privacy of police officers in their work-related communications about police operations and confidential informants.
Class definition issues
The court also found problems with the proposed class definition, which would have included “all members of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police” alive as of March 2023 who alleged privacy violations since 1982.
The court found this definition “unnecessarily broad” as the evidence was “limited to allegations of unauthorized recording and disclosure of conversations among RCMP members of J-Division (i.e., New Brunswick), during Project J-Trinity between 2017 and 2020.”
Leave to amend granted
While striking the entire claim, the court granted Sgt. M.V. leave to amend his claim, noting evidence that the radio communications may have included some personal information beyond police operations.
The court said this wasn’t “one of the clearest of cases in which there is no reason to suppose that the Action might be improved by such an amendment.”
For more information, see Dugas v. Canada (Attorney General), 2025 FC 842 (CanLII).
