Brian D. Wilkie

Lesley Tokar, facing charges under the Fish and Wildlife Conservation Act, brought a motion for a common law publication ban to protect private medical information he intended to share during his trial.

The Crown opposed the motion.

The court applied the three-part Sherman test, which requires demonstrating a serious risk to an important public interest, necessity of the order, and proportionality.

The court found that Mr. Tokar failed to establish a serious risk, as his medical information was not central or necessarily relevant to the strict liability offences charged, and his claims of professional repercussions lacked specific evidence.

The motion for a publication ban was denied.

The Crown appealed the acquittal of the respondent on a charge of unlawfully depositing material on public lands contrary to section 27(1)(a) of the Public Lands Act.

The respondent, a miner who owned mining rights to a parcel of land, had deposited debris on a Crown land trail (CL 16773) that crossed his property.

The trial justice acquitted the respondent, finding that the Crown had not proven the trail was Crown land and that the Mining Act provided a legal exception to the Public Lands Act.

The appellate court found palpable and overriding errors in the trial justice's factual findings and rejected the legal argument that mining rights exempted the respondent from the Public Lands Act.

The appeal was allowed, the acquittal was quashed, and a conviction was substituted with a $500 fine imposed.

Appeals from convictions and sentences imposed on a corporation and individual for offences related to unauthorized access to Crown land and trespass for fishing purposes.

The appellants organized a public protest and removed trees that had been felled by the Ministry of Natural Resources to restrict access to Oswald Lake.

The court upheld the convictions, finding that the Ministry lawfully restricted access under the Public Lands Act and that the appellants were parties to the offences committed by others.

The court also upheld the sentence, finding no error in principle regarding the failure to inquire into financial ability to pay and determining the fine was not demonstrably unfit given the circumstances of organized civil disobedience.

The appellants were charged with a hunting offence under the Provincial Offences Act for allegedly harvesting a moose out of season.

At trial, they brought a Charter application alleging a violation of section 15 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and seeking advanced funding for defence witnesses and counsel fees under section 24(1).

The trial court dismissed the Charter application.

The appellants appealed the dismissal.

The appeal court dismissed the appeal for lack of jurisdiction, finding that the dismissal of a pre-trial Charter motion is not a final order appealable under section 116 of the Provincial Offences Act, and that advanced funding does not constitute "costs" within the meaning of section 116(1)(e).

The defendant was charged with unlawfully hunting big game (moose) without a licence contrary to section 6(1)(a) of the Fish and Wildlife Conservation Act, 1997.

The defendant admitted to shooting a cow moose without a licence but claimed he had constitutional rights to hunt as a Métis person under section 35 of the Constitution Act, 1982, and that his section 15 Charter rights to equality had been violated.

The court found that the defendant failed to establish the existence of a historic Métis community in the area where he was hunting as of the time of effective European control (1850), and that his ancestors did not arrive in the region until after that date.

The court also found that the defendant's section 15 claim was directed at the Métis Nation of Ontario, which was not a party to the proceedings.

The defendant was found guilty.

The defendant corporation was charged with unlawfully disposing of oil field fluids in violation of the Oil, Gas and Salt Resources Act and related regulations.

The Crown sought to admit a Certificate of Analysis from Maxxam Analytics containing chemical analysis results of soil and vegetation samples collected from the defendant's well site.

The defendant objected to admission of the document as hearsay.

The court conducted a voir dire to determine admissibility under the business records exception to the hearsay rule under section 35 of the Ontario Evidence Act.

The court found that the Certificate of Analysis met all requirements for admission as a business record and admitted it into evidence.