Le juge P.E. Roger

The mother brought a motion to change a 2012 Quebec order that granted sole custody of the child to the father.

The mother had previously abducted the child to France for several years before the child was returned to the father in Canada.

The court found a material change in circumstances but dismissed the mother's request for custody or unsupervised access.

The court concluded that the mother lacked insight into the impact of her actions on the child, remained fixated on unproven allegations against the father, and posed an ongoing risk of alienation.

The father retained sole custody, and the mother was granted supervised access and supervised electronic communication.

The accused, charged with historical sexual offences including gross indecency and indecent assault, contested the voluntariness of a statement he made to police.

He argued that he was not properly informed of the reasons for his arrest or his right to counsel under s. 10(a) and (b) of the Charter, as the police initially only mentioned one complainant and used the term 'sexual assault' rather than the specific historical charges.

The court applied the Oickle framework and found that the accused, an intelligent man who was aware of the historical complaints, understood the extent of his jeopardy.

The court concluded that the Crown proved the voluntariness of the statement beyond a reasonable doubt and ruled the statement admissible.

Motion by the prosecution at the close of its case seeking admission of the evidence of five complainants as similar fact evidence across multiple historical sexual offence counts arising from conduct by a parish priest toward boys in the early 1970s.

Applying the governing similar fact evidence framework, the court found no collusion proven on a balance of probabilities and held the improbability of the recurring lap-sitting conduct gave that evidence sufficient probative value to outweigh prejudice.

However, the court refused to admit the evidence cross-count on the further issue of sexual or indecent circumstances, finding those proposed inferences weak and highly prejudicial.

The motion was therefore granted only in part.