Paul Anthony Gonsalves

The defendants sought to qualify Dr. Sidney Harring as an expert on the existence and territory of the Amikwa Nation to support their Section 35(1) aboriginal rights claim.

The Crown opposed.

The court applied the two-stage test for expert evidence admissibility from White Burgess and R. v. Abbey (Abbey #2).

The court found Dr. Harring's evidence failed the threshold requirement for proper qualification due to lack of impartiality, independence, and bias, stemming from his reliance on secondary sources, unverified information from an interested party (Stacey McQuabbie), and contradictions with source documents.

The court also found the evidence would be excluded at the gatekeeper stage due to unreliability.

Consequently, Dr. Harring was not qualified as an expert.

The Crown appealed the acquittal of the respondent, Leonard Boucha, on a charge of unlawful use or occupation of land in a provincial park, contrary to the Provincial Parks and Conservation Reserve Act.

The trial court had dismissed the charge, finding it time-barred under section 53 of the PPCRA, which sets a two-year limitation period from when evidence of the offence first came to an officer's attention.

The Crown argued the offence was continuing and/or the limitation period only began when all elements of the offence, including the land being in a provincial park, were known.

The appeal court dismissed the Crown's appeal, affirming that the continuing offence doctrine was irrelevant when the limitation period is based on discovery, and that the trial court correctly found the limitation period began when the cabin was first discovered in January 2015, as the officers then had evidence of an unauthorized structure in either a provincial park or conservation reserve.

The respondent's request for costs was also dismissed.

The Crown sought leave to withdraw charges against four defendants (three members of Batchewana First Nation and one self-identified Métis individual) for unlawfully harvesting forest resources in Crown forests without proper licenses, contrary to the Crown Forest Sustainability Act.

The defendants opposed the withdrawal, arguing the prosecution was a vehicle to establish aboriginal and treaty rights.

The court granted the Crown leave to withdraw the charges, finding it was in the public interest to resolve such complex aboriginal issues outside the criminal forum.

However, the court awarded substantial costs against the Crown for its delay in withdrawing the charges and for failing to reassess its position when it received the defendants' expert report in May 2014.

The court awarded $90,000 to Clinton Robinson and $300,000 to the three other defendants.

The Crown charged the defendant with knowingly giving a false statement to a conservation officer contrary to section 96(a) of the Fish and Wildlife Conservation Act.

The defendant was alleged to have falsely stated that no second bull moose was shot by members of the hunting party during opening weekend, when in fact Kevin Cain had shot a second bull moose unlawfully.

The trial turned on the credibility of the officer's account of the interview conducted at the defendant's home versus the defendant's account.

The court found reasonable doubt as to whether the defendant was asked about Kevin Cain or Rick Cain, and whether the defendant's responses were as alleged by the Crown.

The defendant was acquitted.

The defendant was charged with 46 counts under the Fish and Wildlife Conservation Act.

He brought a Charter application challenging the validity of a search warrant executed on his residence, arguing that the search violated his s. 8 rights against unreasonable search and seizure.

The defendant contended that the Information to Obtain lacked sufficient evidence that his residence was also his place of business, and that the search was therefore a fishing expedition.

The Crown argued that the Information to Obtain, reviewed holistically, contained sufficient credible and reliable evidence to support issuance of the warrant.

The court found that while the defendant's s. 8 Charter rights were violated due to insufficient evidence linking the residence to the business location, the evidence should not be excluded under s. 24(2) of the Charter, as the violation was minimal, the state did not act in bad faith, and society's interest in adjudication on the merits was strong.