Mainville

The accused, charged with human trafficking and sexual services offences, brought a pre-trial motion for the disclosure of redacted portions of a complainant's police statement.

The Crown argued the redacted information, which related to an unrelated criminal investigation and the complainant's sexual history, was clearly irrelevant and raised privacy concerns.

The court applied the Stinchcombe framework, finding that the low threshold for relevance favoured disclosure and that the redacted portions were not clearly irrelevant to the defence.

The court also rejected the Crown's argument that the statement constituted a 'record' under section 278.1 of the Criminal Code, concluding it was subject to the common law first-party disclosure regime.

The application for disclosure was granted.

The accused, who was convicted following a French-language trial, applied for a stay of proceedings alleging violations of his language rights under section 14 of the Charter and sections 530 and 530.1 of the Criminal Code.

He argued that the occasional use of English by the judge and prosecutor, the quality of the English-to-French interpretation, and the inclusion of English quotations in the written judgment infringed his rights.

The court dismissed the application, finding that the interpretation was of high quality, minor errors were corrected in real-time, and the accused's ability to understand the proceedings and make full answer and defence was not compromised.