Court of Appeal for Ontario

Date: 2022-07-06 Docket: C68771

Before: Tulloch, Lauwers and Coroza JJ.A.

Between:

Her Majesty the Queen Respondent

and

Jean Fregory Pierre Appellant

Counsel:

Fady Mansour and Vanessa Garcia, for the appellant Giuseppe Cipriano, for the respondent

Heard: June 21, 2022

On appeal from the conviction entered on November 3, 2020 by Justice Jonathan Brunet of the Ontario Court of Justice.

Reasons for Decision

[1] The appellant appeals his conviction on the basis of the trial judge’s dismissal of his Garofoli application. We dismiss the appeal for the following reasons.

[2] The reviewing judge showed his familiarity with the applicable tests from R. v. Garofoli, [1990] 2 S.C.R. 1421, in reviewing whether a warrant could be issued on the basis of the Information to Obtain, and with R. v. Debot, [1989] 2 S.C.R. 1140, concerning whether the confidential informant was credible and whether the information given was compelling and corroborated.

[3] The appellant’s essential argument is that the confidential informant could not be found credible because the informant was a first-time informer, whom the police handler had only known for three months. The handler had questioned the informant on the informant’s knowledge of drug trafficking, which was adequate, and the information was otherwise corroborated by surveillance, identification and other evidence.

[4] The reviewing judge assessed whether the confidential informant was credible, whether the information given was compelling and whether it was corroborated (per the Debot factors). Finding the informant to be credible was fully within the reviewing judge’s purview, and this court should defer to his assessment absent an error of law, a misapprehension of evidence, or failure to consider relevant evidence: R. v. Sadikov, 2014 ONCA 72, 305 C.C.C. (3d) 421, at para. 89. There is no basis to interfere with the reviewing judge’s decision. The reasons were adequate to permit appellate review.

[5] We reject the appellant’s excessively granular approach, which would treat each of the three factors as unrelated silos for the purpose of proof. The reviewing justice must assess the ITO as a whole, and in context of the evidence. The test articulated in R. v. Araujo, 2000 SCC 65, [2000] 2 S.C.R. 992, at para. 54, is that there must be reliable evidence that might reasonably be believed on the basis of which authorization could have been issued. See also, R. v. Kalonji, 2022 ONCA 415, at para. 19. There is no reasonable basis for accepting the appellant’s argument, which would effectively prevent the reception of evidence from virtually any first-time informant.

[6] The appeal is dismissed.

“M. Tulloch J.A.”

“P. Lauwers J.A.”

“S. Coroza J.A.”