The Supreme Court of Canada is hearing arguments today on a Quebec case that could have far-reaching implications on policing across Canada.
Quebec’s attorney general is set to argue against a lower court decision that invalidated random police traffic stops, finding that they led to racial profiling and violated Quebecers’ rights.
The case has been winding through the courts for four years. It was brought by Montrealer Joseph-Christopher Luamba.
After hearing arguments on Monday and Tuesday from Quebec’s attorney general, Luamba and several interveners, the court could take anywhere from several weeks to several months to issue a decision.
Here’s what you need to know about the case.
Who is Joseph-Christopher Luamba?
Joseph-Christopher Luamba, the young man at the origin of this case, was pulled over by police nearly a dozen times without reason in the 18 months after he got his driver’s licence.
He told Quebec Superior Court in 2022 that when he sees a police cruiser, he gets ready to pull over.
Luamba, who is Black, said he believes he was racially profiled during the traffic stops — none of which resulted in a ticket.
“I was frustrated,” he told the court back then. “Why was I stopped? I followed the rules. I didn’t commit any infractions.”
What did earlier courts decide?
The original decision on this case dates to October 2022. Quebec Superior Court Judge Michel Yergeau ruled that Article 636 of Quebec’s Highway Safety Code, the section that allows for random traffic stops, violates articles seven and nine of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Article 7 guarantees the right to life, liberty and security according to the principles of fundamental justice. Article 9 ensures everyone has the right not to be arbitrarily detained or imprisoned.
The Supreme Court of Canada previously ruled on random traffic stops in 1990. In a case called R. v. Ladouceur, the court ruled the stops, though arbitrary, were justified as an appropriate and proportional way to ensure drivers are following the law.
“Stopping vehicles is the only way of checking a driver’s licence and insurance, the mechanical fitness of a vehicle, and the sobriety of the driver,” the court ruled.
In his 2022 decision, Yergeau said evidence had since shown that arbitrary power granted to the police to make roadside stops without cause became “for some of them, a vector, even a safe conduit for racial profiling against the Black community.”
The Quebec attorney general contested that ruling, but the Quebec Court of Appeal unanimously upheld it — and now the Supreme Court will rule on whether to overturn that decision or keep it.
Some argue police need ability to do random traffic stops
The Quebec attorney general’s argument centres around judicial precedent and whether the Quebec Court of Appeal erred in its 2024 ruling. Quebec’s justice minister, Simon Jolin-Barrette, has said that the ability to do random traffic stops is an important tool for police.
He’s not the only one.
Police chiefs in Quebec as well as the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police (CACP) have said that Article 636 is vital to police enforcement work.
In documents submitted to the Supreme Court, the CACP says “the authority to conduct traffic stops without required grounds for safety purposes outside an organized program is an essential tool for promoting compliance with traffic regulations.”
Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) also has intervener status in this case. They are slated to present arguments on Tuesday. The group, which advocates for stricter impaired driving enforcement, says random stops provide police with an “important tool for detecting and deterring impaired driving.”
Roadblocks to screen for drunk drivers, which are not at issue in this case, provide insufficient disincentive to drink and drive, MADD says. In a brief submitted to the court ahead of the hearing, MADD cited research in South Africa that concluded that, particularly in rural areas, random stops were more effective at catching impaired drivers.
Racial profiling a major problem
Central to Luamba’s argument against random traffic stops was the notion that, in the three decades since the Supreme Court of Canada affirmed the legal right for police to do random stops, there is now more awareness about racial profiling.
In his 2022 decision, Yergeau was explicit: “Racial profiling does exist,” he wrote. “It is not a laboratory-constructed abstraction. It is a reality that weighs heavily on Black communities. It manifests itself in particular with Black drivers of motor vehicles.”
In documents filed to the Supreme Court, lawyers for Quebec’s attorney general acknowledged racial profiling as a “major problem,” but insisted that police do random stops without taking the race of a car’s driver into account.
What’s at stake?
Random police stops have been suspended in Quebec since April 2025, after the Court of Appeal refused the government’s request to allow them to continue until the province’s legal challenge was heard before the Supreme Court.
If the Supreme Court rules against Quebec, it could have wider implications for other provinces that have similar traffic stop rules.
Random or arbitrary stops are currently allowed in all other provinces, which are still operating under the 1990 Supreme Court precedent established in R. v. Ladouceur, which allows random stops for the purpose of checking sobriety or verifying licence documents, for example.
