Patrick Cardinal

The accused was arrested without warrant days after an alleged sexual assault and made an incriminating videotaped statement during police interrogation.

At trial, the judge refused to hold a voir dire on the lawfulness of the arrest under s. 495(2) of the Criminal Code, concluding that s. 495(3) deemed the arrest lawful so long as s. 495(1) grounds existed.

The Supreme Court held that s. 495(2) imposes mandatory limits on warrantless arrest powers and that an arrest contrary to those limits may be unlawful and arbitrary under s. 9 of the Charter.

Section 495(3) only protects peace officers from liability in proceedings against them and does not bar an accused from challenging the legality of the arrest in their own criminal trial.

The refusal to hold a voir dire was an error of law requiring a new trial.

A police officer was convicted of fraud over $5,000 after lying and wilfully withholding information during an assessment by a physician-arbitrator responsible for determining his disability diagnosis, thereby depriving his employer.

The majority of the Quebec Court of Appeal upheld the conviction; the dissenting judge would have substituted a verdict of attempted fraud.

The appellant appealed to the Supreme Court of Canada as of right on the basis of a dissent on a question of law.

The majority of the Supreme Court dismissed the appeal, substantially for the reasons of the Court of Appeal majority, finding sufficient causal connection between the dishonest acts and deprivation to sustain the fraud conviction.