Executive Summary: Key Legal and Evidentiary Issues

• Challenge to a provincial corrections strip-search policy for Opioid Agonist Therapy (OAT) prisoners as violating Charter rights (ss. 7, 8, 12 and 15).
• Allegation that mandatory post-OAT strip searches across three Nova Scotia facilities constitute the intentional tort of trespass to the person (false imprisonment, assault and battery).
• Dispute over the temporal scope of the class period and the evidentiary “some basis in fact” standard supporting a broader class definition from 2014–2021.
• Debate on whether a s. 15 Charter claim must plead a specific comparator group at certification, and the court’s reliance on modern equality jurisprudence to reject that requirement.
• Contention about whether Charter and tort damages, including potential base-level awards, can be determined in aggregate as common issues in a class proceeding.
• Consideration of non-monetary remedies, including potential expungement-type relief, and the adequacy of a litigation plan and procedural mechanisms to ensure access to justice for incarcerated class members.

Facts of the case
The proceeding arises from the treatment of prisoners in Nova Scotia’s adult provincial correctional facilities who received Opioid Agonist Therapy (OAT) for medically diagnosed opioid use disorder while in custody. As part of a provincial corrections policy, male inmates receiving OAT were routinely subjected to strip searches immediately after taking their OAT medication. These searches occurred at Central Nova Correctional Facility, Northeast Nova Scotia Correctional Facility and Cape Breton Correctional Facility over a multi-year period. The policy operated in a blanket fashion: at certain times either all OAT recipients were strip searched after medication or none were, with no individualized assessment or targeting based on specific suspicion. Prisoners were required to remove all clothing, remain nude in the presence of correctional officers, nurses and sometimes other prisoners, and to expose and touch intimate areas of their bodies on command. The plaintiff, Matthew Alexander Bonn, was one such inmate. He received OAT for a diagnosed substance use disorder and was repeatedly strip searched pursuant to the policy. He describes these searches as traumatic and humiliating, and states that he did not feel able to refuse because his continued access to medically necessary OAT, as well as the threat of institutional consequences, made compliance effectively compulsory. Another former inmate, Peter Monteith, provided affidavit evidence describing similar experiences between February 2020 and July 2021 while incarcerated at Central Nova. He is Indigenous, has a history of childhood sexual abuse and mental illness, and attested that the strip searches caused him significant psychological distress. He ultimately had to retain counsel and formally request that the searches cease in his case. Both men characterize the post-OAT strip search regime as degrading and harmful. The plaintiff also filed expert evidence from Dr. Claire Bodkin, a family physician and co-chair of a prison health group at the College of Family Physicians of Canada. Her evidence addresses the prevalence and impact of childhood abuse among incarcerated populations, the clinical rationale for OAT as an evidence-based treatment for opioid addiction, and the position of the College on access to OAT in detention. She also supports the view that less intrusive methods of managing diversion risks, including injectable formulations, were available alternatives that could have reduced or eliminated the need for routine strip searches in connection with OAT. On behalf of the Attorney General of Nova Scotia, the Acting Director of Correctional Services, Scott Keefe, swore an affidavit confirming that the general description of the strip-search process and OAT delivery provided by the plaintiff and Monteith was reasonably accurate. He also confirmed that strip searches are no longer routinely conducted on inmates receiving OAT, and provided policy documents, an internal directive and an investigation report into a death in custody that helped explain the origins and implementation of the stricter OAT and strip-search regime. Portions of his cross-examination and responses to undertakings supplied further detail about the timing and scope of the policy in each facility.
The policy framework and class definition
The underlying policy linked medically prescribed OAT to immediate post-administration strip searches of all male inmates on OAT in the identified facilities. It was introduced in response to a death in custody (Mr. Clayton Cromwell) and a perceived need to tighten control over opioid-related medications in prisons. The plaintiff’s evidence emphasized that the policy did not distinguish between individuals based on conduct or risk, and that there were alternative ways to manage diversion concerns that would be less intrusive, such as altered modes of administration or enhanced supervision without requiring inmates to strip. A crucial issue for certification was the temporal scope of the proposed class. The plaintiff proposed a class of male prisoners who were strip searched immediately after receiving OAT between January 1, 2014 and December 31, 2021, across all three facilities, relying on available evidence that the policy was in force during this broader period and that it ended around August 5, 2021. The Attorney General accepted that the policy applied to a defined group of male prisoners on OAT at the three facilities, but sought to narrow the class period by facility, based on records it had located, to more restricted dates for Northeast Nova and Cape Breton. It argued that class periods must be clearly delineated at certification and grounded in concrete evidence. The Court applied the “some basis in fact” standard used for certification evidence, emphasizing that the burden is not to prove the claim on the merits but to show factual support for the proposed class structure. Recognizing that disclosure was incomplete and that records of OAT administration and related strip searches might be imperfect, the Court concluded it would be premature and potentially unfair to restrict the class period by facility at this stage. Instead, it accepted the broad temporal window of January 1, 2014 to December 31, 2021, reflecting the earliest and latest points reasonably supported in the record as the operative period of the post-OAT strip-search policy. The certified class therefore consists of male prisoners strip searched directly after receiving OAT in any of the three named correctional facilities during that overall period. The Court noted that questions about limitation periods, discoverability and any finer temporal distinctions by institution are better addressed at the merits stage on a fuller evidentiary record.
Legal causes of action and Charter issues
The plaintiff advances both public law and private law claims. On the public law side, he alleges breaches of four Charter provisions: section 8 (unreasonable search and seizure), section 7 (life, liberty and security of the person), section 12 (cruel and unusual treatment or punishment), and section 15 (equality and non-discrimination). The parties agreed that the pleadings disclose viable causes of action under sections 7, 8 and 12 for the purposes of certification, without conceding any merits. The Attorney General, however, argued that the section 15 claim was defective because it did not specify a comparator group, and urged that the plaintiff be required to amend to identify such a group (suggesting inmates receiving other forms of medication who were not strip searched as a likely comparator). The Court rejected that position, relying on the Supreme Court of Canada’s decision in Withler v Canada (AG), which cautions against reducing equality analysis to a rigid, formalistic search for a perfect comparator group. The judge held that, at the certification stage, it is sufficient that the pleadings allege a distinction based on an enumerated or analogous ground (disability due to opioid addiction) and assert that class members were subjected to adverse differential treatment through mandatory strip searches tied to their OAT medication. Detailed specification of comparator groups is not required at this procedural juncture; it can be refined later if necessary as the evidence develops. The pleadings rely on the idea that inmates with opioid addiction, treated with OAT and subjected to strip searches as a condition of receiving medically necessary medication, were treated differently and in a stigmatizing, discriminatory way compared with other inmates who did not receive OAT or received other medications without such searches. The Court also noted that section 1 of the Charter, which allows governments to justify limitations on rights, is referenced in the pleadings and will be addressed when a merits court assesses whether any established breaches can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society.
Trespass to the person and related tort claims
In addition to Charter claims, the plaintiff pleads the tort of trespass to the person, encompassing false imprisonment, assault and battery. He relies on authority recognizing that compelled strip searches without lawful justification in a corrections context can be tortious, and that coercive demands to strip, expose and manipulate one’s body can amount to assault and battery even if the physical contact is self-administered under compulsion rather than imposed by a guard’s hands. The Attorney General accepted that the pleadings, particularly paragraphs 58 to 61 of the claim, sufficiently allege the elements of trespass to the person to clear the low “plain and obvious” threshold at certification, while disputing the underlying merits. Its main objection was not to the existence of the tort claim, but to whether it could appropriately be treated as a common issue. Specifically, it argued that determining elements such as lack of consent, deprivation of liberty against an individual’s will, intentional infliction of unlawful force, and apprehension of harmful or offensive force would require individualized, subjective assessments of each inmate’s circumstances, perception and response, making them unsuitable for resolution in common. The Court disagreed. It held that the focus at certification is whether there are common elements that can be efficiently determined once for the class, not whether all individual nuances vanish. Because the strip searches were conducted systematically pursuant to a uniform policy applied to all OAT-receiving inmates, and because prisoners were in a coercive institutional environment with a marked power imbalance, the judge found there were common aspects of the alleged trespass that could be addressed together. To reflect this, the Court slightly amended the key common issue on trespass to the person so that the central question asks whether “the common elements of post-OAT strip searches of the class members” constitute trespass to the person. If the plaintiff can establish that the policy and its standardized implementation meet the legal elements of false imprisonment, assault and battery, that ruling will materially advance every class member’s tort claim, even if specific causation or extra harm must later be addressed individually.
Common issues, damages and non-monetary remedies
The parties worked through several rounds of revisions to the proposed list of common issues. Nineteen common issues were ultimately put before the Court, with particular debate around those relating to trespass to the person, the availability and structure of Charter damages, the possibility of aggregate damages, and the scope of non-monetary remedies. One contentious Charter issue concerned whether damages under section 24(1) could be appropriately considered as a common issue in a Nova Scotia class proceeding in light of prior local appellate authority in Nova Scotia Health Authority v Murray, where the Court of Appeal expressed skepticism about aggregating Charter damages in a strip-search case involving a single incident and a relatively small group of plaintiffs. The plaintiff argued that more recent Ontario jurisprudence—particularly Brazeau, Reddock and Francis, all involving systemic unconstitutional segregation practices—demonstrated that courts can, consistent with Vancouver (City) v Ward, award base-level Charter damages on a class-wide basis for systemic breaches while preserving the ability of individual class members to pursue additional damages for unique or aggravated harm. Drawing on that reasoning, the judge accepted that there is room within the flexible remedial structure of section 24(1) to treat the availability of Charter damages, and the potential for some form of aggregate or base-level award, as a common issue in this systemic strip-search litigation. Similarly, the Court certified a common issue asking whether Charter and/or tort damages can be determined on an aggregate basis, in whole or in part, and if so, what quantum of aggregate damages is warranted. The judge stressed that this does not predetermine that damages will be awarded, nor how they will be calculated, but rather recognizes that a common issues judge could, if liability is established and the evidence supports it, fix a base amount of damages per class member or per period, with individualized top-ups to be sought later as needed. On non-monetary remedies, the plaintiff sought certification of an issue asking whether “any other non-monetary remedies” are warranted. The Attorney General objected that this was too vague for meaningful trial preparation and that specific remedies such as record expungement were not clearly pleaded. The plaintiff responded that section 24(1) empowers courts to craft a wide range of “appropriate and just” remedies and that it would be premature to cabin potential remedies before full discovery, particularly where additional documentary evidence (including disciplinary records arising from refusals to strip) might reveal the need for systemic non-monetary measures. The Court accepted the plaintiff’s position and left open the possibility of non-monetary relief as a certified common issue, noting that particulars could be refined later as the case progresses.
Representative plaintiff, litigation plan and preferable procedure
The Court was satisfied that Matthew Bonn is an appropriate representative plaintiff. His own experiences fall squarely within the certified class definition; he has no apparent conflict of interest with other class members; and his evidence, together with that of Mr. Monteith and Dr. Bodkin, provides a foundation for the claims. The Attorney General did not contest his suitability. The plaintiff submitted an amended litigation plan that outlines how class members will be identified, how notice will be disseminated, and how common and individual issues will be managed. Central to the identification process is the role of the Nova Scotia Health Authority, recognized by both sides as the most accurate source of records identifying individuals who received OAT while incarcerated. The plan contemplates a motion (which the Court directs to be brought) to obtain those records, subject to appropriate privacy safeguards, so that potential class members can be located and informed. Given that many class members may face barriers such as poverty, limited internet access, low literacy or ongoing involvement in the criminal justice system, the plan includes a range of notice and outreach measures, including web-based notices, postings within correctional facilities and the use of updated address information. The Court finds the plan workable at this stage, acknowledging that it may require refinement through case management as the action evolves. On the “preferable procedure” requirement under the Class Proceedings Act, the judge emphasizes access to justice, judicial economy and behaviour modification. Individual suits by former inmates would be costly, procedurally complex and daunting for persons already at a disadvantage. The class proceeding allows evidence about the systemic policy, its origins, its legality and its consequences to be marshalled and adjudicated once, avoiding a multiplicity of trials. It also has potential to promote institutional accountability and inform future corrections policy beyond the specific OAT strip-search practice, even though that specific policy is no longer in effect in its original form.
Outcome and implications
The Supreme Court of Nova Scotia grants the motion to certify Bonn v Nova Scotia (Attorney General) as a class proceeding. The Court approves a class definition covering male prisoners who were strip searched immediately after receiving OAT between January 1, 2014 and December 31, 2021 at the three named provincial facilities; confirms that the pleaded Charter and tort claims disclose viable causes of action; settles and modestly amends the list of common issues (including those on trespass to the person, the availability and potential aggregation of Charter and tort damages, and non-monetary remedies); accepts the amended litigation plan as workable; and appoints Matthew Bonn as representative plaintiff. As this is a procedural certification decision, it does not resolve liability or award any damages or costs. The plaintiff is the successful party on the certification motion, but no monetary award—whether for Charter damages, tort damages, aggregate relief or costs—is quantified or ordered at this stage, and the total amount that may eventually be granted in favour of the class, if any, cannot yet be determined.