How Nova Scotia has revived its ‘crime shouldn’t pay’ law

This is Robert List, last year outside the courthouse in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, the day he was sentenced to nearly nine years for taking 18,000 sexually explicit photos of boys and downloading many more. So why are we talking about this convicted sex offender now? Well, it's because authorities aren't done with him yet. The province's Department of Justice now wants to strip Robert List of his home and his vehicles. And what they're using is a two-decade-old provincial law known as civil forfeiture, which, without a lot of fanfare, was overhauled last year with significant implications. Most provinces have civil forfeiture legislation, and basically it spells out how the government can use the civil courts to confiscate... Proceeds of illegal activity and the things used in illegal activity. So think of cash found on a suspected drug dealer or the car used to transport those drugs. The forfeited property is then liquidated. Here's the big advantage of civil forfeiture. Unlike criminal court, nothing needs to be proved beyond a reasonable doubt. Instead, it's the balance of probabilities. There doesn't even need to be a conviction. But even with all that embedded in the old law, civil forfeitures had slowed to a trickle in Nova Scotia. Last year, the legislation was revamped. The result? A jump in cases flagged by police and pursued by the Department of Justice. Last year, we had only about three, and I would say it's well over 25, 30 or more this year. Here's the biggest change. For property worth less than $125,000, things like... Cars, cash, and jewelry seized by law enforcement. All justice officials have to do is give notice to the person it was taken from and any other potential owner. They have a deadline to dispute it. If they don't, that property... It's not the only change. There is now something called unexplained wealth orders, where a judge can order a suspected criminal to detail how they pay for their luxury lifestyle. In other cases, such as cash found near drugs, it's presumed to be the proceeds of crime. Unless the person can show otherwise. Well, what we're seeing in Nova Scotia is a larger component of organized crime being actively working in different parts of the province, including rural Nova Scotia. So it's a way that we can support our law enforcement as they take on sort of a new challenge in terms of very well organized, some coming from outside the province, some even coming from outside the country, of organized crime. All these legal changes have made it much easier for authorities, and clearly they are taking advantage. But does it go too far? So these administrative proceedings whereby the government doesn't have to actually prove anything to a court are really concerning. This is something we saw happen a lot in the United States, and then now it's sort of spread into Canada. And the issue there is, let's say, there's some cash found in a car, and maybe the person's car who owns that car is accused of drug dealing. Well, you know, you might think it's safe to assume that that cash. is proceeds of crime or related to crime but there are lots of cases where it isn't where that cash you know maybe it's grandma's cash and she uses the car too or maybe jewelry is is seized and it doesn't actually belong to the person who is believed to be a criminal but belongs to somebody else and if those people don't come forward quickly enough and maybe they don't have lawyers or they don't know the process that that that cash or that jewelry just becomes the the property of the state, and that just doesn't seem right. Police and the Justice Minister argue there is still due process and cases involving property over $125,000 and any involving houses or buildings must still go to court. But even then, things can go sideways. For instance, earlier this year, this $300,000 soil sifter was seized as part of an Environment Department investigation into an alleged illegal landfill outside Halifax. The province wanted it forfeited, but the equipment owner vehemently asserted he had nothing to do with the landfill. He said he was simply leasing some land at the site. The case was later dropped. As for Robert List, the man convicted in that child abuse image case, the Department of Justice argues he used his home and vehicles to take many of the photos. It says the property and vehicles should all be forfeited. His lawyer, however, is fighting the case in court. Robert List, willing to plead guilty and go to prison, unwilling to give up his property. Richard Cuthbertson, CBC News, Halifax.