What is the meaning of s. 8 of the Canadian Privacy Act?

The meaning of “reasonable expectation of privacy” in s. 8 was discussed in Hunter v. Southam Inc. Dickson J., for the court, adopted a broad, purposive analysis. After finding that the guarantee was vague and open, devoid of specificity, and lacking any particular historical, political or philosophic context when compared to the United States Fourth Amendment, he concluded at ¶19 that: an assessment of the constitutionality of a search … must focus on its ‘reasonable’ or ‘unreasonable’ impact on the subject of the search … and not simply on its rationality in furthering some valid government objective.