R. v. Leon, 2025 ONCJ 601

CITATION: R. v. Leon, 2025 ONCJ 601

DATE: November 17, 2025

ONTARIO COURT OF JUSTICE

(TORONTO REGION)

BETWEEN:

HIS MAJESTY THE KING

Respondent

— AND —

GAVIN DORNEAL LEON

Applicant

Before Justice P. Downes

Heard on October 1, 2, 22, 23, 29 & November 3, 2025

Reasons for Judgment Released on November 17, 2025.

Ryan Wilson......................................................................................... Counsel for the Crown

Reid Rusonik and Sophie Vaisman............................... Counsel for Gavin Dorneal Leon

P. DOWNES J.:

1. INTRODUCTION

1On July 6th, 2024, police obtained three search warrants under s. 11 of the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act SC 1996 c. 19 (CDSA) for two residences and a motor vehicle associated with the accused, Gavin Leon. On the same day, and before executing those warrants, police officers went to Mr. Leon’s neighbourhood and located him driving the vehicle. They followed Mr. Leon to several areas and, when he entered a convenience store near Pape and Danforth, they arrested him without incident.

2A search of Mr. Leon’s bag incident to arrest uncovered a loaded firearm and a separate magazine with eight rounds of ammunition.

3Police then proceeded to execute the three search warrants.

4Nothing of any evidentiary value was seized from the residences. When police executed the warrant on the motor vehicle two days later, they seized from the trunk of his car another firearm loaded with an over capacity magazine and two additional over capacity magazines, one of which was loaded with ammunition, as well as a handgun suppressor, other ammunition and some fentanyl residue.

5Mr. Leon was charged with 19 firearms related offences. He was not charged with any drug-related offences.

6Mr. Leon challenges the validity of the search warrants and the search incident to arrest and seeks to exclude the evidence seized pursuant to s.24(2) of the Charter on the basis that his s. 8 rights were violated. He says that the warrants could not have issued because the Information to Obtain (ITO) failed to disclose reasonable grounds to believe that the items sought would be at the places to be searched. Resting on the same premise, Mr. Leon also says that the police did not have the necessary reasonable grounds to believe he had committed an offence, thus making his arrest unlawful and the search incident to that arrest a violation of s. 8.

7The Crown resists the application and submits that the grounds in the ITO were sufficient for the warrants to issue and for the arrest to have been made. Even if they were not, the Crown submits, the evidence should not be excluded under s. 24(2).

8These reasons explain why I agree with Mr. Leon. In my view, on the record before me, including the excised version of the ITO, these search warrants could not have issued.

9Dependent as it is on the information provided by a single confidential informant (CI), the ITO in support of the warrants fails to provide a sufficient basis for the issuing justice, acting reasonably, to conclude that the information provided by the CI was credible, compelling and corroborated. It amounted to nothing more then an unverified generalized tip. It was not enough to allow a justice to find that the items sought in Appendix “A” of the ITO would be found at the places to be searched. Mr. Leon’s residences and vehicle were therefore searched in violation of his s. 8 rights.

10Equally, the police were not possessed with reasonable grounds to arrest Mr. Leon for anything. The search incident to that arrest was also a breach of s. 8.

11This was a serious violation with a multi-pronged impact on Mr. Leon’s Charter- protected interests. Notwithstanding its importance to the Crown’s case and the significant public interest in the prosecution of these charges, I conclude that the evidence seized must be excluded under s. 24(2) of the Charter.

2. THE PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

12All three warrants relied on a single ITO. The ITO relied upon information from a single confidential source. As a result, portions of the ITO were redacted.¹ The Crown conceded that the redacted version of the ITO did not set out sufficient grounds to justify the issuance of the warrants and sought to rely on the six-step procedure set out in R. v. Garofoli.²

13In accordance with that procedure the defence was provided with a redacted version of the ITO and a judicial summary of the redactions, which was prepared by the Crown and refined with judicial input in an ex parte and in camera proceeding.³ Mr. Leon conceded that the judicial summary allowed the defence to be sufficiently aware of the nature of the redacted material to challenge it in argument or by evidence. As a result, the s. 8 challenge proceeded on the basis that I could consider the ITO in its entirety, including the redacted portions.⁴

14There was also a further and less common application incidental to the Garofoli proceedings. The defence applied for a declaration that the confidential source relied on in the ITO was not a bona fide informant but was instead an agent of the police and not entitled to the protection of privilege afforded by virtue of being a confidential informant. This is sometimes referred to as a Basi hearing.⁵

15The defence filed an affidavit from Mr. Leon⁶ describing the basis upon which he believed that the person thought to be the CI was an agent. The Crown filed an affidavit from a detective in the Intelligence Unit⁷ which essentially outlined the factual basis upon which the Crown would submit that whomever the CI was, they were not a police agent. I provided a judicial summary of the redacted portions of that brief affidavit to the defence.⁸

16I agreed that there was a basis to conduct such a hearing and proceeded to hear from one witness, who was the handler for the CI. I then provided a judicial summary of the evidence heard in that proceeding to the defence.⁹

17Armed with the redacted ITO, the judicial summary of the redactions in the ITO, the redacted affidavit from the Intelligence Unit and the associated summary, as well as some additional disclosure of source material provided by the handler to the affiant, the parties made submissions on whether the warrants could have issued.

18Where it is necessary for me to refer to redacted portions of the materials in these reasons in order to fully explain my conclusions, I have done so in endnotes. A copy of these reasons with the endnotes redacted will be provided to Mr. Leon and can be publicly disseminated. An unredacted version will be made a sealed lettered exhibit so that it will be available to any reviewing court. An unredacted version will also be provided to Crown counsel.

3. THE LEGAL PRINCIPLES GOVERNING THE REVIEW OF SEARCH WARRANTS

19A search warrant is presumptively valid.¹⁰ The burden is on the applicant challenging the warrant to demonstrate that the minimum standard of reasonable and probable grounds has not been met.¹¹

20These warrants were granted pursuant to s.11 of the CDSA, which requires that there be “reasonable grounds to believe” that a controlled substance or offence related property will be found at a named place. The phrase “reasonable grounds to believe” does not require proof on the balance of probabilities. The statutory and constitutional standard is one of credibly-based probability.¹²

21A warrant that is issued based on an ITO that fails to disclose the necessary statutory prerequisites is facially invalid. A warrant is sub-facially invalid if information not before the issuing justice is added to the record, or information that should not have been before the issuing justice that is excised, renders the issuance of the warrant unsupportable or demonstrates that the affiant deliberately, or at least recklessly, misled the issuing judge, rendering the entire ITO unreliable.¹³

22The ultimate question on the s. 8 challenge to the warrants is not whether the reviewing justice would have issued the warrants. Rather, the question is whether, based upon the record that was before the issuing justice as amplified and excised by the evidence adduced at this hearing, the warrants could have issued.¹⁴ In reviewing a warrant for sufficiency the reviewing justice should adopt a “common sense and holistic approach.”¹⁵

23Where, as here, the ITO relies on information from a confidential source, a review of the grounds for the issuance of the warrants requires consideration of what is commonly referred to as the Debot Criteria,¹⁶ or the “three Cs”: was the source information credible, compelling and corroborated? In assessing the extent to which the information provided by the source meets the Debot criteria, the totality of the circumstances must be considered. No one factor is determinative, and weaknesses in one area may be compensated for by strength in the others.¹⁷

4. THE INFORMATION TO OBTAIN

24The ITO is not lengthy. It bears repeating the basic point, however, that the items sought as described in Appendix “A” to both the warrants and the ITO were the typical drug-related items: controlled substances, drug paraphernalia, proceeds, debt lists etc. The warrants did not authorize the seizure of any firearms.

25After attesting to Mr. Leon’s known residences and a vehicle registered in his name, Appendix “C” of the ITO proceeds to introduce the affiant who asserts his opinion that “much of the information provided by the Confidential Source(s) has been corroborated through police sources and surveillance leading me to believe the information is compelling in nature.”¹⁸

26The ITO then describes Mr. Leon’s arrest three and a half years earlier in January 2021 in which drugs and a handgun were discovered in the same vehicle for which a warrant was being sought in this case. Mr. Leon was charged in relation to those items. The ITO discloses that those charges are still outstanding, and the affiant notes that including this information is “not an assessment of character by showing involvement with police, but rather used as a way to corroborate information of LEON.”

27The ITO goes on to describe observations of Mr. Leon’s movements in and around his residences in the two weeks leading up to the warrant application.

28The affiant proceeds to describe his general beliefs about why the items sought would afford evidence of an offence and why they could be found at the places to be searched. The affiant’s sub-heading sums it up: “People Keep Personal Items in their Personal Places.” The affiant concludes Appendix “C” by reasserting his personal belief that the items sought would be found at the places to be searched.

29Appendix “D” of the ITO relates information about and received from the CI. I will address the specifics of that information in my analysis of the sufficiency of the grounds, below.

30At the end of Appendix “D”, following the affiant’s description of the male about whom he is providing information, his possession of a firearm and the possible location of drugs, the affiant states the following (which was unredacted in the course of the preparation of the judicial summary):

At this time it is unknown how many people know about the firearm observed by the confidential source. In order to protect the confidential source’s identity, I am only seeking a Controlled Drugs and Substances Act search warrant as I do not wish to inadvertently identify or narrow the pool of individuals that the confidential source could be, which would occur by drafting a Criminal Code search warrant for the firearm(s). The information related to the firearm(s) is also dated and I am unable to corroborate that part of the information any further at this point of the investigation.

31Appendix “E” provides information about the CI’s history.

32The judicial summary says that Appendix “E” discloses that “this is the first time the CI has provided information to the police.” In the affidavit of the detective in the Intelligence Unit filed on the application for a Basi hearing, the affiant says that they reviewed the “source file” for the CI and confirmed that the CI had provided information on what the judicial summary of that affidavit described as “a specific number” of occasions, which is “significantly different” than information provided in the ITO.ⁱ

33The Crown acknowledges that the assertion in the ITO that this was the first time the CI had provided information to the police is factually incorrect. As a result, this part of Appendix “E” of the ITO was excised from the ITO for the purposes of the review.

5. THE S. 8 BREACH

34The information provided by the CI touching on Mr. Leon’s possession of any of the items sought in Appendix “A” is minimal. It is described it in detail in the endnotes.ⁱⁱ

35The CI provided other information about the male he was describing, namely the two addresses where he had lived, some information about his tenuous connection to other criminal acts, and that the male had recently become a father.

36In sum, the information provided by the CI as described in the endnotes, as well as the fact that Mr. Leon was facing outstanding gun charges arising from his arrest in January 2021, and the affiant’s personal belief based on experience that people keep personal items in their cars and houses, are the sum total of information available to the issuing justice on the question of whether the items listed in Appendix “A” — drugs and drug paraphernalia — would be found at the places to be searched.

37The affiant repeatedly states that information provided by the CI had been corroborated by police sources. He also says, as I have described earlier, that the description of what led to Mr. Leon being charged in January 2021 is provided “to corroborate information of LEON.” I do not understand what this reference to corroboration means. The phrase is highly ambiguous. If the affiant means that this 2021 arrest is somehow corroborative of the information provided by the CI about Mr. Leon’s current possession of drugs, I respectfully disagree. The ITO fails to disclose any meaningful corroboration of the CI’s information.

38While I accept that reasonable grounds do not necessitate corroboration of the very criminality of the information given by the tipster, the only corroboration in this instance is of information that would be known to any number of people in Mr. Leon’s community. As Doherty JA put it in R. v. Lewis:

Absent confirmation of details other than details which describe innocent and commonplace conduct, information supplied by an untested, anonymous informant cannot, standing alone, provide reasonable grounds for an arrest or search.¹⁹

39I appreciate that the CI in this case is not anonymous. But similar concerns apply with respect to the corroboration of details provided even by a known source. Any member of Mr. Leon’s community could have provided the innocent details related by the CI in this case.

40Nor is the information provided by the CI compelling. It is at the most extreme level of generality with respect to what contraband might be found. Any reference by the affiant to his belief that Mr. Leon was in possession of a particular drug has no support in the ITO. The information with respect to where any illegal items might be found is general and it is also contradictory. Nor is there any indication that the CI is relying on firsthand observations of criminality, not to mention instances in which he or she observed Mr. Leon in possession of or dealing in drugs. Simply put, with respect to the items sought and the places to be searched authorized by the warrants, there is nothing compelling about the information from the CI which formed the basis for the issuance of the warrants. Nor is there anything in the ITO to allow the issuing justice to know the precise source of the CI’s information.

41While the CI may have provided more detailed, and therefore potentially more compelling information about possession of firearms, that does little to advance the proposition that Mr. Leon was also in possession of drugs. While I accept that guns and drugs are “frequent companions,”²⁰ that there may be grounds to believe that someone is in possession of one cannot be a substitute for the complete absence of grounds that they possess the other.

42In any event, I am skeptical that the ITO discloses reasonable grounds to believe that Mr. Leon was in possession of firearms. As the affiant himself stated, “the information related to the firearm(s) is also dated and I am unable to corroborate that part of the information any further at this point of the investigation.”

43This reference to firearms led to a curious turn in the course of the Crown’s submissions.

44Initially, the Crown conceded that on a facial analysis the ITO did not provide reasonable grounds to believe that drugs or any related items listed in Appendix “A” of the ITO would be found at any of the places to be searched.²¹ He maintained however, that if the issuing justice was satisfied that the ITO failed to disclose reasonable grounds to believe that any of the items in Appendix “A” would be found at any of the locations to be searched, but did disclose reasonable grounds to believe that firearms would be found, even though they are not listed in Appendix “A”, these CDSA warrants could issue authorizing the police to seize firearms. The Crown explained that this was the case because the affiant was full, fair and frank in disclosing to the issuing justice that the true goal of the investigation was to search for firearms, not drugs. In other words, the CDSA warrant could be used as a subterfuge for the seizure of guns if that was necessary in order to protect the identity of a confidential source.²²

45This is a novel submission, in support of which the Crown relied on the judgment of Kenkel J. in R. v. Dadollahi-Sarab.²³

46That case provides no assistance to the Crown. There, the defence complained that the police obtained a CDSA warrant as a ruse to enable them to install a listening device in the accused’s home in furtherance of a different investigation. That device had been judicially authorized in a separate application, but the police had been unable to gain surreptitious access to the accused’s residence to install it. The affiant had disclosed to the issuing justice on the CDSA application that installing the device was the primary purpose of seeking the warrant.

47Kenkel J. found on the Garofoli review that the CDSA warrant was properly issued because there were reasonable grounds to believe that the items to be seized under that warrant would be found in the residence.

48With respect to the so-called ruse, he said this, at para. 25:

The presence of a “dual purpose” at the time the affiant applied for the warrant did not invalidate the resort to s.11 of the CDSA -- R v Sandhu 2011 ONCA 124. This applies even where the other purpose is the more important purpose in the eyes of the officer -- Sandhu at para. 62. I find the circumstances including the reference to the second purpose set out in the June 23rd ITO did not disclose a s.8 breach such that the authorizing Justice of the Peace should have declined to issue the warrant.

49I know of no lawful basis to conclude that a CDSA warrant could issue in the circumstances described by the Crown. It runs contrary to a basic premise of search warrant principles and jurisprudence to suggest that a CDSA warrant could issue, even if the ITO fails to disclose reasonable grounds to believe that the items sought under the warrant are in the places to be searched.

50It may be that a Criminal Code s. 487.01 General Warrant could be sought to authorize such a ruse;²⁴ a CDSA warrant could not be.

51With respect to the third Debot factor, credibility, the excised ITO sheds very little light on the CI’s history.ⁱⁱⁱ It addresses, as the judicial summary discloses, the CI’s background and role in criminal activity and the length of time the CI has been involved with it, and provides a general assertion as to the degree of the CI’s involvement in this criminal subculture. It also discloses in the most general of terms the CI’s motivation for providing information.^iv The ITO, particularly in light of the redacted reference to the CI’s history as an informant, has little to offer in terms of measuring the CI’s credibility.

52As Wilson J. said in Debot, “the level of verification required may be higher where the police rely on an informant whose credibility cannot be assessed or where fewer details are provided and the risk of innocent coincidence is greater.”²⁵ Since in this case the credibility of the informant cannot be assessed and few details were supplied, a relatively higher level of corroboration was required.

53Here, as I have discussed, the level of meaningful corroboration was low.

54The affiant provides his belief as to whether or not the information received from the CI is firsthand, second-hand, based on gossip, observations, or a combination of these. But that assertion is not supported by any examples of firsthand knowledge or observations by the CI. Like much of the ITO, this amounts to little more than the affiant’s submission or belief, unsupported by any evidence, about the source of the information supplied by the CI. The mere assertion by the affiant that the information is firsthand, is detailed or that the CI is credible cannot serve to enhance the CI’s credibility. It is the affiant’s opinion; it is not evidence.

55In sum, this ITO falls on all three branches of the Debot framework.

56Stripped to its bare essentials, it is little more than a generalized, unsourced assertion that some general item of contraband will be found in property related to Mr. Leon. In my respectful view, the information in this application did not cross the threshold into credibly-based probability and failed to establish reasonable grounds to believe that the items sought would be found in any of the three locations authorized to be searched.

57Mr. Leon has demonstrated on a balance of probabilities that the search of his residences, vehicle and his person was a violation of s. 8.

58I will now turn to s. 24(2).

6. SECTION 24(2)

59Mr. Leon bears the onus of establishing on a balance of probabilities that the admission of the impugned evidence would bring the administration of justice into disrepute. As the Supreme Court of Canada set out in R. v. Grant,²⁶ the focus of the s. 24(2) analysis is on the overall repute of the administration of justice and the public’s confidence in the justice system in view of the long-term consequences of admission of unlawfully obtained evidence.

60The focus of this application was, of course, on the issuance of the search warrants. But the analysis with respect to breach of s. 8 applies equally to the search incident to arrest of Mr. Leon. That arrest was premised on the same grounds to believe he was in possession of illegal firearms as those contained in the ITO.

61The Grant analysis is comprised of three lines of inquiry. The first line of inquiry addresses the seriousness of the Charter-infringing state conduct. As Grant holds, there is a spectrum of seriousness:

At one end of the spectrum, admission of evidence obtained through inadvertent or minor violations of the Charter may minimally undermine public confidence in the rule of law. At the other end of the spectrum, admitting evidence obtained through a wilful or reckless disregard of Charter rights will inevitably have a negative effect on the public confidence in the rule of law, and risk bringing the administration of justice into disrepute.²⁷

62Here, the seriousness of the breach lies in what was at the very least a careless approach to the drafting of this ITO. The Crown conceded that the ITO was largely a “boilerplate” affidavit in respect of which the affiant did little to tailor the application to the circumstances of this case.

63In my view the affiant’s repeated assertions about the credibility of the CI, the corroboration of information and the compelling nature of the information supplied were not just careless, they were a subtle attempt to convince the issuing justice, successfully as it turned out, that this application was far stronger that the evidence actually made out.

64The Crown’s submission that this application was made as a ruse to seize firearms suggests that this was an approach deliberately adopted by the affiant. That is highly concerning, displaying as it does what in my view is the most elementary of misunderstandings of the warrant process.

65It is also troubling that, while the affiant discloses the reason why he is not seeking a Criminal Code search warrant, he does not make it clear to the issuing justice that he was really seeking to seize firearms under the guise of a paper-thin application for a CDSA warrant. I have little doubt that the issuing justice had no idea this was the affiant’s intent.

66Indeed, in my view the effect of the disclaimer paragraph was to mislead the issuing justice. If this was not intentional, it at the very least displayed a reckless disregard for the affiant’s obligations in bringing this ex parte application and deprived the issuing justice of information essential for him to properly exercise his discretion to issue the warrants.

67The comments of Rosenberg JA in R. v. Hosie are particularly apposite here. There, the affiant had included a misleading paragraph respecting the informant’s reliability. In holding that the evidence seized under the warrant should be excluded, Rosenberg JA commented:

The wording of that paragraph displays a degree of carelessness completely inconsistent with the standard of care expected from any police officer deemed competent to apply for a search warrant. That wording had the effect of misleading the justice of the peace, who was required to pass upon the sufficiency of the information….The obtaining of a search warrant in this fashion strikes at the core of the administration of justice. As Dickson J. observed in Hunter et al v. Southam Inc., supra at page 110, for a procedure of prior authorization to be meaningful “it is necessary for the person authorizing the search to be able to assess the evidence as to whether that standard has been met, in an entirely neutral and impartial manner”. The justice can only perform that function if provided with accurate and candid information. Blind reliance upon ritualistic phrases without regard to the facts of the particular case robs the judicial officer of the ability to perform this vital function in the administration of justice….The courts should not be seen as condoning the use of language in search warrants which masks the true state of affairs and deprives a judicial officer of the opportunity to fairly assess whether the state's interest in detecting crime outweighs the individual's privacy interest in his or her own home.²⁸

68I am cognizant of Rosenberg JA’s caution in Rocha that “[a]pplying for and obtaining a search warrant from an independent judicial officer is the antithesis of wilful disregard of Charter rights.”²⁹ But as Rosenberg JA went on to say:

I should not be taken as holding that whenever a search warrant has been granted, the first Grant inquiry favours admission of the evidence. But the approach is not, as held by the trial judge, to hold in favour of exclusion because obtaining a search warrant is a deliberate process. The approach rather should be to look at the ITO and consider first if it is misleading in any way. If so, the court should then consider where it lies on the continuum from the intentional use of false and misleading information at one end to mere inadvertence at the other end.³⁰

69In my view the affiant was not reasonably diligent in ensuring that he conveyed the true state of affairs to the issuing justice. He tried to bootstrap a weak application with inappropriate submissions and groundless assertions. As Fish J. put it in R. v. Morelli:

The repute of the administration of justice is jeopardized by judicial indifference to unacceptable police conduct. Police officers seeking search warrants are bound to act with diligence and integrity, taking care to discharge the special duties of candour and full disclosure that attach in ex parte proceedings. In discharging those duties responsibly, they must guard against making statements that are likely to mislead the justice of the peace. They must refrain from concealing or omitting relevant facts. And they must take care not to otherwise exaggerate the information upon which they rely to establish reasonable and probable grounds for issuance of a search warrant.³¹

70While I cannot find that the affiant deliberately set out to mislead the issuing justice, the application left a great deal to be desired and demonstrated an unfortunate disregard for basic principles governing applications for judicial authorizations. The extent to which the ITO fell short of providing reasonable grounds suggests a concerning ignorance of Charter standards by the police who sought the warrant. This contributes to the seriousness of the breach.³²

71In my view the first branch of the Grant analysis pulls strongly in favour of exclusion of the evidence.

72The second line of inquiry assesses the impact of the violation on the accused’s Charter-protected interests. This line of inquiry requires an assessment of the nature of the Charter-protected interests engaged and the degree to which the Charter violation impacts those interests.

73In my view the impact on Mr. Leon was considerable. The police searched the most protected of private areas – his residence, his person and, to a lesser extent, his vehicle. The search of his person occurred in a public place.

74The second Grant factor also pulls strongly in favour of the exclusion of the evidence.

75The third line of inquiry assesses the societal interest in an adjudication on the merits. Does the vindication of a Charter violation exact too great a toll on the truth-seeking function of the trial process?³³

76There is no question that society has a very strong interest in an adjudication of this case on the merits, as it involves the alleged possession of loaded illegal firearms, one of them allegedly on Mr. Leon’s person as he walked around a busy area of the city. It is also beyond dispute that the public in the city of Toronto, and in Canada generally, is justifiably alarmed at the proliferation of illegal firearms, and the risk to public safety which they pose.

77It may be that the firearm seized from Mr. Leon incident to arrest is measured slightly differently in the 24(2) analysis than those that were hidden from view in the trunk of his car. Either way, this is real, reliable evidence which is essential to the Crown’s case. Multiple firearms are involved. The third branch pulls strongly in favour of admission.

78In balancing the lines of inquiry, it is the cumulative weight of the first two lines of inquiry that must be balanced against the third line of inquiry.³⁴ Where the first two lines of inquiry tip strongly towards exclusion, the third line of inquiry will rarely tip the scale back to admissibility.³⁵

79Excluding reliable firearms evidence at any time is not something that should be done lightly. In the current climate the public rightly expects those who possess illegal firearms to be properly tried and, if found guilty, appropriately sanctioned. At the same time, as McLachlin CJ and Justice Charron, writing for the majority, observed in Grant:

The phrase “bring the administration of justice into disrepute” must be understood in the long-term sense of maintaining the integrity of, and public confidence in, the justice system. Exclusion of evidence resulting in an acquittal may provoke immediate criticism. But s. 24(2) does not focus on immediate reaction to the individual case. Rather, it looks to whether the overall repute of the justice system, viewed in the long term, will be adversely affected by admission of the evidence. The inquiry is objective. It asks whether a reasonable person, informed of all relevant circumstances and the values underlying the Charter, would conclude that the admission of the evidence would bring the administration of justice into disrepute.³⁶

80While undoubtedly the public has a very strong interest in the adjudication of this case on the merits, I accept that the long-term reputation of the administration of justice requires that the evidence of the firearms and associated items seized from Mr. Leon and from his car be excluded as their admission would bring the administration of justice into disrepute.

7. CONCLUSION

81Mr. Leon’s application to exclude the evidence seized from him incident to arrest and from his vehicle is allowed. His s. 8 rights were violated by the issuance of search warrants in the absence of the statutory prerequisites necessary to authorize those searches, and the police did not have reasonable grounds to believe he was in possession of firearms at the time he was arrested.

82The evidence of the firearms is excluded from this trial.

P. Downes J.

November 17, 2025

ENDNOTES

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Footnotes

1. 1Redacted ITO, Exhibit 2
2. 21990 CanLII 52 (SCC), [1990] 2 S.C.R. 1421
3. 3Exhibit 8
4. 4Exhibit 9 (sealed)
5. 5R. v. Basi, 2009 SCC 52; R. v. Sandhu 2020 ONCA 479; R. v. McKenzie 2015 ONSC 6289; R. v. Burke et al, unreported decision of Porter J. October 21, 2021 (OCJ)
6. 6Exhibit 27
7. 7Exhibits 29 (sealed) and 30
8. 8Exhibit 31
9. 9Exhibit 34
10. 10R. v. Pires; R. v. Lising, 2005 SCC 66, at para.30; R. v. Sadikov 2014 ONCA 72 at para. 83
11. 11R. v. Crevier, 2015 ONCA 619, at para. 66. Strictly speaking, the burden here is divided because Mr. Leon bears the burden with respect to the offences relating to firearms seized from his vehicle during the execution of a CDSA warrant, while the Crown bears the burden with respect to charges relating to firearms seized from Mr. Leon’s person incident to his warrantless arrest. As my analysis will show, the location of the burden is ultimately immaterial to the result in this case.
12. 12Sadikov, at para. 81
13. 13R. v. Shivrattan, 2017 ONCA 23, at para. 26; R. v. Phan, 2020 ONCA 298 at paras. 49-51
14. 14Garofoli, at p.1452; R. v. Araujo, 2000 SCC 65, at para. 51
15. 15McCormack v. Evans, 2025 ONCA 767, at para. 67; R. v. Herta, [2018] ONCA 927, at para. 21
16. 16R. v. Debot, 1989 CanLII 13 (SCC), [1989] 2 S.C.R. 1140
17. 17R. v. Rocha, 2012 ONCA 707, [2012] O.J. No.4991 (C.A.) at para.16
18. 18Exhibit 3, Appendix “C” under “Overview” (the pages and paragraphs at this point in the ITO are not numbered).
19. iREDACTED
20. iiREDACTED
21. 19R. v. Lewis 1998 CanLII 7116 (ON CA), [1998] O.J. No. 376, at para. 19 (CA)
22. 20R. v. Simon 2010 ONCA 754, at para. 1
23. 21The Crown later in his submissions withdrew that concession and maintained that the ITO did provide reasonable grounds to support the issuance of the warrants to search for and seize drugs and associated items listed in Appendix “A”.
24. 22Submissions of Crown counsel, November 3, 2025, at 10:42 a.m.
25. 23R. v. Dadollahi-Sarab 2017 ONCJ 808
26. 24That issue was addressed recently in Woods c. R., 2025 QCCA 943, where a General Warrant was issued authorizing police to stop and search the suspects and their vehicle using a false pretext, based on reasonable grounds to believe a drug trafficking offence had been committed. By not revealing the true reason for the stop and search, the police were able to continue their investigation without disclosing its existence to the other targeted individuals. The Québec Court of Appeal held that the General Warrant could not issue because it implicitly authorized the police to detain the target while concealing the true reason for that detention, in violation of the s. 10(a) of the Charter.
27. iiiREDACTED
28. ivREDACTED
29. 25Debot, at para. 63
30. 262009 SCC 32; R. v. Le, 2019 SCC 34, at paras. 139-140; R. v. Beaver, 2022 SCC 54; R. v. McGregor, 2023 SCC 4; R. v. McColman, 2023 SCC 8; R. v. Zacharias, 2023 SCC 30
31. 27Grant, at para. 74
32. 28R. v. Hosie, 1996 CanLII 450 (ON CA), [1996] O.J. No. 2175, at para. 31
33. 29Rocha, at para. 28
34. 30Rocha, at paras. 28-29
35. 31R. v. Morelli, 2010 SCC 8, [2010] 1 S.C.R. 253, at paras. 99-103
36. 32Grant, at para.75
37. 33R. v. Kitaitchik (2002), 2002 CanLII 45000 (ON CA), 166 C.C.C. (3d) 14 (Ont. C.A.), at para. 47
38. 34R. v. Beaver, 2022 SCC 54, at paras. 133-134
39. 35R. v. LaFrance, 2022 SCC 32, at para. 90; R. v. McGuffie, 2016 ONCA 365, at paras. 62-63
40. 36Grant, at para. 68