Lawrence Greenspon

The Crown and the accused both sought a review of the accused's bail conditions related to charges arising from the Freedom Convoy.

The Crown alleged the accused breached her conditions by agreeing to accept an award, while the accused sought to vary her conditions to allow travel to Ontario and use of social media.

The court found no breach of conditions and determined that a material change in circumstances warranted a de novo review.

The court ordered the accused's continued release with varied conditions, maintaining the social media ban but modifying the geographic restriction to allow her to visit Ottawa outside the downtown core.

The applicant, a retired television broadcaster charged with criminal harassment, sought a publication ban on his name, arguing that publication would violate his rights under sections 7 and 11(d) of the Charter and cause irreparable damage to his reputation.

The court dismissed the application, finding that the Charter does not protect a privacy interest to prevent media publication of an accused's name, nor does publication compromise the presumption of innocence.

The court also held that the common law Mentuck test was not met, as the applicant's concerns were purely personal and lacked a public interest component.

The offender, a financial advisor, was convicted of defrauding 10 clients of over $215,000 over a 3-year period.

The offender returned the funds to his clients before being charged, resulting in no financial loss.

The Crown sought a 30-month penitentiary sentence, while the defence sought a conditional sentence.

The court emphasized the breach of trust, the vulnerability of the victims, and the need for denunciation and deterrence.

The court sentenced the offender to 15 months' imprisonment and imposed a lifetime prohibition order under s. 380.2 of the Criminal Code.

Following the dismissal of a recusal motion brought by counsel for the requestors, Canada sought costs on a partial indemnity basis.

Counsel for the requestors did not file responding costs submissions, arguing that the court should not take further steps while the recusal decision was under appeal.

The court rejected this argument, noting no stay had been obtained, and fixed costs at $28,911.04 payable by counsel personally.

The accused, a financial advisor, was charged with multiple counts of fraud, theft, misappropriation, and forgery relating to his handling of funds for 10 clients.

The Crown alleged that the accused received funds from clients to invest, but instead deposited them into his own accounts, retained them for extended periods, and provided forged documents to conceal his actions.

The court found the accused guilty on 33 of the 34 remaining counts, concluding that he intentionally retained client funds contrary to their directions, placing their financial interests at risk, and used forged documents to deceive them.

Following a successful trial for false arrest, excessive use of force, and Charter breaches against the police, the plaintiff sought costs.

The court found the plaintiff beat her Rule 49 offer to settle, entitling her to partial indemnity costs up to the offer date and substantial indemnity costs thereafter.

After considering the complexity of the action and the reasonable expectations of the parties, the court awarded the plaintiff costs fixed at $181,210.00.

The defendant police services board brought a motion to strike paragraph 28 of the plaintiff's amended statement of claim without leave to amend.

The court found that the plaintiff's amendments, which alleged the board failed to have a system to track Charter violations and excessive force by officers, fell under the board's statutory responsibilities and provided sufficient material facts.

The motion to strike the paragraph in its entirety was dismissed, though the word 'training' was struck as it violated a previous order.

The defendants brought a motion to strike paragraph 64 of the plaintiff's Amended Amended Statement of Claim without leave to amend.

The plaintiff had previously been granted leave to amend certain subparagraphs.

The court found that the plaintiff could not add the Chief of Police to the narrative as it was outside the scope of the previous order.

However, the court held that the plaintiff had provided sufficient material facts to support the novel claim that the Police Services Board failed to have a system in place to recognize officers' propensity for Charter breaches.

The motion to strike paragraph 64 in its entirety was dismissed, with costs awarded to the plaintiff.

The accused, a financial advisor, brought an application for a directed verdict following the close of the Crown's case, challenging the sufficiency of the evidence on 30 of 37 counts of fraud, theft, misappropriation, and forgery.

The accused argued that the rule in Hodge's Case should apply to the circumstantial evidence, requiring the evidence to be consistent only with guilt.

The court rejected this argument, applying the test from Arcuri that requires only limited weighing to determine if the evidence is reasonably capable of supporting an inference of guilt.

After reviewing the evidence of multiple former clients whose funds were allegedly withheld, misdirected, or returned from unidentifiable sources, the court found sufficient evidence on all essential elements of the offences and dismissed the application.

During a fraud trial involving a financial advisor, the Crown brought an application to admit evidence of prior discreditable conduct across counts as similar fact evidence.

The Crown alleged the accused misappropriated funds from ten clients using a similar modus operandi.

The court applied the Handy framework and found the evidence highly probative to the issues of actus reus and mens rea, with minimal risk of prejudice in a judge-alone trial.

The application to admit the similar fact evidence was allowed.

The defendant Ottawa Police Services Board brought a motion to strike paragraph 28 of the plaintiff's Statement of Claim.

The court found that paragraphs 28(a) and (b) lacked sufficient material facts to support the allegations regarding the Board's knowledge of the officers' propensity for excessive force, and struck them with leave to amend.

Paragraphs 28(c), (d), and (e), which related to training and supervision, were struck without leave to amend based on established precedent.

The plaintiff was ordered to pay costs of $3,360.

The defendants, the Ottawa Police Services Board and several officers, brought a motion to strike paragraph 64 of the plaintiff's Amended Statement of Claim.

The court applied the test for striking pleadings and found that the paragraphs relating to training and supervision should be struck without leave to amend, relying on established case law.

The court also struck the remaining paragraphs for failing to provide sufficient material facts, but granted leave to amend those specific portions.

The motion was granted and costs were awarded to the defendants.

The applicants, owners of a restaurant offering shisha, sought an interlocutory injunction to restrain the City of Ottawa from enforcing a bylaw prohibiting the use of water pipes in indoor public places, pending their Charter challenge.

Applying the RJR MacDonald test, the court found a serious issue to be tried and irreparable harm due to the corporate applicant's potential lack of standing for Charter damages.

However, the balance of convenience favoured the City, as the public interest in protecting health from second-hand smoke outweighed the applicants' financial losses and temporary limits on cultural traditions.

The motion was dismissed, and costs were awarded to the City.

The plaintiffs sued the Ottawa Police Services Board and several officers for negligent investigation, false arrest, and Charter breaches following a dramatic police raid on their home.

The raid stemmed from a long-standing neighbourhood dispute over a drainage pipe, which led an investigating officer to obtain a public safety warrant and arrest the plaintiff for mischief and intimidation.

The court found the officer's investigation was negligent, as he failed to interview key witnesses or consider the lack of urgency.

The court also held the arrest was unlawful and the search violated section 8 of the Charter due to material omissions in the warrant application and the unreasonable use of a SWAT team.

The plaintiffs were awarded damages for false arrest, negligent investigation, wrongful seizure of firearms, and Charter breaches.

The accused, charged with first-degree murder, brought an application for a stay of proceedings alleging a breach of his s. 11(b) Charter right to be tried within a reasonable time.

The total delay was 48 months, well above the 30-month presumptive ceiling established in Jordan.

The court found that the case was not particularly complex and that the Crown's reliance on the previous state of the law was unreasonable, particularly given the accused's continuous pre-trial custody and the Crown's failure to mitigate delay caused by its own unavailability.

The application was granted and a stay of proceedings was entered.

The accused, charged with first degree murder, brought an application to bar the Crown from calling witnesses to testify about matters that the defence had already admitted or offered to admit.

The defence argued that calling such evidence was unnecessary and irrelevant given the admissions.

The court dismissed the application, holding that the Crown has broad prosecutorial discretion to determine how to present its case, including the right to reject defence-framed admissions and to call evidence to prove elements such as planning and deliberation, negate third-party suspect theories, and provide confirmatory evidence for unsavoury witnesses.

The Crown sought to admit two statements made by the accused to police during a missing person investigation that later became a first-degree murder case.

The court found the first statement inadmissible because the police officer's notes were inadequate to prove voluntariness beyond a reasonable doubt.

The second statement, which was video-recorded, was ruled admissible because the accused attended the police station voluntarily, the interaction was conversational, and the police did not yet have reasonable grounds to suspect the accused of a crime, meaning no caution was required.

The appellant appealed his convictions for impaired driving, operating a motor vehicle with a blood alcohol concentration over 80, and breach of probation.

At trial, the sole issue was the identity of the driver, with the defence arguing that a passenger was driving.

The trial judge rejected the defence evidence and convicted the appellant.

On appeal, the appellant argued the trial judge failed to properly apply the third prong of the W.(D.) framework regarding credibility and reliability.

The Superior Court of Justice dismissed the appeal, finding no error in the trial judge's detailed credibility analysis and factual findings.

The applicant sought a bail review under s. 520 of the Criminal Code after being detained on primary, secondary, and tertiary grounds for drug trafficking charges.

The applicant argued that the Justice of the Peace erred in law and that the proposed use of electronic monitoring constituted a material change in circumstances.

The court found that while the Justice of the Peace made some errors of law warranting intervention, the electronic monitoring proposal did not amount to a material change.

Upon conducting a fresh review, the court concluded the applicant failed to meet the reverse onus, finding detention was necessary on all three grounds due to flight risk, likelihood of reoffending, and the need to maintain public confidence in the administration of justice.

The accused applied for an order requiring that his murder trial be scheduled earlier than the agreed trial date because he would have been in custody for nearly four years by the time of trial.

Granting the request would effectively require the reassignment of one of the Crown prosecutors who was unavailable on earlier court dates.

The court held that the assignment of Crown counsel is an exercise of prosecutorial discretion belonging to the Attorney General and is reviewable only for abuse of process.

As no abuse of process or improper motive was alleged or established, the court declined to interfere with prosecutorial discretion.

The application for an earlier trial date was therefore dismissed.