Alan N. Young

The appellant challenged marijuana possession and trafficking convictions by arguing that the former statutory prohibition violated s. 7 of the Charter, exceeded federal jurisdiction, and was not proven on the evidence.

The court held that recreational marijuana use, even in the privacy of the home, did not engage protected liberty or security interests as a matter of fundamental personal importance.

Assuming a harm principle formed part of fundamental justice, the court found a reasoned apprehension of non-trivial harm associated with marijuana use and upheld the prohibition except insofar as it failed to include a medical-use exemption.

Because the appellant was not within the class requiring that exemption and the repealed statute could still support prosecution, no stay of proceedings was warranted.

The appeal was dismissed.

The appellant appealed a conviction for unlawful cultivation of marijuana based on evidence seized under a warrant-authorized search of his home.

He argued that the warrant lacked reasonable grounds and that inaccuracies in the supporting information required the warrant to be quashed, with the resulting evidence excluded under ss. 8 and 24(2) of the Charter.

The court held that the anonymous tip, police observations, and hydro consumption evidence, assessed on the corrected and amplified record, met the reasonable grounds threshold under the governing authorities.

The court further held that the misstatements were not deliberate, did not seriously mislead the issuing justice, and did not invalidate the warrant.

The appeal was dismissed.

The appellant appealed a conviction for keeping a common bawdy house arising from the operation of a commercial house of domination offering sadomasochistic services.

The court held that the trial judge reasonably found the erotica sessions were primarily sexual in nature and constituted prostitution because they involved lewd acts for payment for the sexual gratification of clients on a frequent and habitual basis.

The court upheld the admission of a videotape corroborating the commercial services, agreed that most of the proposed expert evidence was irrelevant or insufficiently reliable under the governing expert evidence framework, and found that the search-related Charter breaches did not justify a stay.

The appeal was dismissed.