Resisting Arrest Laws in Canada

The Criminal Code defines a peace officer as:

• a mayor, warden, reeve, sheriff, deputy sheriff, sheriff’s officer and justice of the peace;
• a member of the Correctional Service of Canada, such as a warden or any other officer or permanent employee of a prison;
• a police officer or other people employed for the preservation and maintenance of the public peace;
• a designated officer participating in an integrated cross-border operation in relation to activities governed by the Customs Act, the Excise Act or the Excise Act, 2001.
• an officer carrying out duties in relation to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act;
• a fishery guardian as described by the Fisheries Act;
• a pilot in command of an aircraft; and
• officers and non-commissioned members of the Canadian Forces who have been given the powers of peace officers.

It is always a good idea to cooperate with police and not physically resist if they want to arrest you. Keep in mind that officers may make an arrest as long as they are satisfied a person has or is about to commit an offence. However, there have been cases where the courts have found officers were not justified in their actions.

For example:

• In 2021 in Edmonton, a provincial court judge found an Edmonton constable guilty of an "unnecessary and gratuitous" assault on an "unresisting" Indigenous man. According to R v. Partington, the man had been stopped for riding his bicycle on a sidewalk without a bell, a bylaw infraction. When he tried to flee police, an officer gave chase and pinned him to the ground and a second officer “aggressively” drove his knee into his back as he was arrested. In finding the second officer guilty of assault, “the time which must be considered in evaluating the legitimacy of the use of force is the time at which the force is used … [this was] a gratuitous assault on an unresisting suspect.”
• In Winnipeg in 2019, a man was charged with two charges of assaulting a police officer and one charge of resisting arrest after police responded to a report of a break-in involving a man with a weapon. According to the judgment in R. vs. Anobis, the man was tasered and punched by police during the arrest. Citing “significant concerns with the evidence”  police gave about the incident, a provincial judge cleared the man of all charges a year later.