The appellants challenged a s. 37 order sustaining Crown objections to questions that might reveal the identity of a confidential source described in a wiretap affidavit.
The Court of Appeal held that even if the source acted as a police agent in an unrelated stolen-goods transaction, that did not convert the source into an agent for all purposes or in relation to the appellants' drug investigation.
The court further held that, even assuming the Crown's earlier characterization of the source as an agent in the wiretap materials created prejudice and amounted to an abuse of process, compelled disclosure of identity was unavailable because informer privilege must be protected if it in fact applies.
Any appropriate remedy would instead lie, if warranted, in a Garofoli challenge to the authorization and possible exclusion of intercepted evidence.
