M. Haraschuk

The accused was charged with sexual assault following an encounter in his vehicle after driving the complainant and her friends home from a nightclub.

The complainant testified she was heavily intoxicated, experienced blackouts, and awoke during sexual acts to which she did not consent.

The court found the complainant lacked the capacity to consent due to her level of intoxication.

The court further rejected the accused's defence of honest but mistaken belief in communicated consent, finding he failed to take reasonable steps to ascertain consent after the complainant had earlier expressed reluctance.

The accused was found guilty.

The two offenders were convicted of sexually assaulting a 19-year-old unconscious victim.

The assault involved digital penetration by one offender while the other encouraged and facilitated the act.

The court rejected the argument that the absence of penile penetration lessened the gravity of the offence.

Emphasizing denunciation and deterrence, the court sentenced both first-time offenders to 16 months in custody followed by two years of probation, along with a 20-year SOIRA order and a weapons prohibition.

The two accused were jointly charged with sexual assault.

The complainant, who had consumed an unknown substance and alcohol, lost consciousness but later experienced a flashback of being sexually assaulted by one accused while the other accused watched and provided encouragement.

The court found the complainant's flashback memory to be reliable, as it was consistent and corroborated by physical bruising.

The court held that the complainant did not consent to the sexual activity.

Both accused were found guilty, with the observing accused convicted as a party to the offence for aiding and abetting by facilitating the assault and encouraging the principal offender.

The applicants, jointly charged with historical sexual offences, brought applications for a stay of proceedings alleging unreasonable delay under s. 11(b) of the Charter.

The total delay was approximately 35 months.

The court deducted periods of defence-caused delay, reasonable judicial reserve time, and exceptional circumstances arising from one applicant's Legal Aid application process.

After deductions, the net delay for both applicants fell well below the 30-month Jordan ceiling.

As the applicants failed to demonstrate a sustained effort to expedite the proceedings, the applications were dismissed.

The Crown brought a pre-trial application seeking an order that the defence provide a list of its witnesses to be read to prospective jurors during jury selection to identify potential conflicts.

The defence opposed the application, arguing it violated the accused's right against self-incrimination and the principle that the defence need not reveal its case until the close of the Crown's case.

The court dismissed the Crown's application, finding that compelling the defence to reveal its witness list at the outset would amount to conscripting the accused against himself.

The court adopted a procedure proposed by the defence where a combined, anonymized list of Crown and defence witnesses would be provided to the trial judge and prospective jurors silently.

The Crown brought an application to admit the hearsay statements of a deceased victim in a second-degree murder trial under the principled exception to the hearsay rule.

The victim had made statements to police, medical staff, and family members before dying from his injuries.

The court applied the test for threshold reliability, noting concerns about the victim's perception due to intoxication, medical condition, and language barriers.

Furthermore, the victim's statements identifying the attacker as a woman contradicted the Crown's theory that the male accused was the attacker.

The court found the statements lacked sufficient threshold reliability and dismissed the application.

The accused, charged with second degree murder, brought applications under s. 8 of the Charter to exclude evidence derived from the warrantless seizure of his pants, shoes, and sweater.

The court found that the accused had a reasonable expectation of privacy in the clothing and that the warrantless seizures violated his s. 8 rights, as there were no exigent circumstances.

Applying the Grant framework under s. 24(2) of the Charter, the court excluded the evidence derived from the pants due to a lack of evidence regarding their seizure, but admitted the evidence derived from the shoes and sweater, finding that their admission would not bring the administration of justice into disrepute.

Several First Nations accused sought disclosure of 2013 jury rolls in advance of a planned constitutional application alleging underrepresentation of Indigenous jurors in jury pools.

They argued the records were relevant to a forthcoming application under ss. 7, 11(d), and 11(e) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and to a potential s. 11(b) delay claim arising from the litigation of that issue.

The court held that the requested materials were governed by the third‑party disclosure framework from R. v. O'Connor because the records were held by a separate government entity rather than the prosecuting Crown.

Applying the likely relevance threshold, the court concluded the jury rolls could assist in determining whether delays associated with the application should be characterized as institutional delay or delay attributable to the accused.

Disclosure was therefore ordered subject to privacy undertakings.

The applicant sought review of a detention order under s. 520 of the Criminal Code after bail was denied on secondary grounds.

He argued the justice of the peace misapplied the Gladue principles and presented a new release plan involving multiple sureties and structured cultural and community activities.

The reviewing judge found the justice of the peace had sufficient evidence regarding the applicant’s Indigenous background and properly considered Gladue factors when assessing detention.

The court further concluded the proposed bail plan lacked meaningful community support and that the proposed sureties minimized or denied the applicant’s extensive violent criminal history.

The application was therefore dismissed and the detention order maintained.