Richard Wagner

The Supreme Court of Canada dismissed the auditors’ appeal and confirmed that an expert witness must be able and willing to provide fair, objective, and non-partisan assistance to the court as a threshold admissibility requirement, with remaining concerns about independence generally addressed at the gatekeeping weighing stage.

On an appeal concerning judicial appointment eligibility under s. 98 of the Constitution Act, 1867, the appellants challenged the interpretation adopted by the Quebec Court of Appeal.

The Supreme Court held that the appellants failed to demonstrate any interpretive error in the lower court's analysis of s. 98.

Arguments relying on the prior reference regarding ss. 5 and 6 of the Supreme Court Act were rejected as inapplicable because the constitutional and statutory contexts differed.

The appeal was dismissed for essentially the reasons given by the Quebec Court of Appeal.

The appeal addressed the test for substantive equivalence under s. 23 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms in minority language education.

The court held equivalence must be assessed holistically from the perspective of rights holders, including facilities, programming, and travel burdens, rather than formal cost parity.

The court restored a declaration that the minority-language educational experience was not equivalent to nearby majority-language alternatives, while leaving responsibility and remedy issues to later phases.

The court also upheld phased proceedings and restored special costs for the successful public interest litigants.

In this patent damages appeal under s. 8 of the Patented Medicines (Notice of Compliance) Regulations, the Court upheld the Federal Court of Appeal decision and dismissed the patentees' appeal.

The Court agreed with the majority's reasoning on liability period, market-entry assumptions, and compensation for lost sales tied to unapproved indications.

This appeal concerns priority for statutory accident benefits under Ontario's no-fault automobile insurance regime after a claimant declined optional rental-counter coverage and was injured in a single-vehicle accident.

The core issue was whether the insurer had a sufficient nexus to the claimant to qualify as an insurer obliged to respond under s. 268 of the Insurance Act and the inter-insurer priority framework.

The Court accepted the appellate reasons below that the arbitrator erred in excluding the insurer from the statutory scheme.

The appeal was allowed and costs were awarded to the appellant.

The Court allowed the appeal, holding that authorization under s. 225.4 of Quebec’s Securities Act requires a realistic chance of success and that the respondent failed to show credible evidence of a material change triggering timely disclosure obligations.

The Court dismissed an appeal from a civil contempt finding against a lawyer who returned trust funds to his client despite a Mareva injunction.

The Court held that civil contempt requires proof beyond a reasonable doubt of an intentional act that breaches a clear order with notice, and does not require contumacious intent.

The Court also held the motions judge erred by reopening and setting aside the initial contempt finding on evidence that should have been filed at the liability stage.

On a statutory appeal from a specialized human rights tribunal, the Court held that judicial review standards apply, with correctness for the scope of state religious neutrality and reasonableness for most discrimination and evidentiary determinations.

The municipal council prayer, viewed in context, was found to be a religious practice by a public authority that breached the state’s duty of neutrality.

The practice created discriminatory interference with freedom of conscience and religion that was more than trivial or insubstantial.

The by-law attempting to regulate the prayer could be declared inoperative in relation to the complainant, and the remedial orders and damages were largely upheld subject to limits on the tribunal’s power to issue a general invalidity declaration.

The appeal was allowed.

In two joined criminal appeals, the court considered whether mandatory minimum imprisonment terms in s. 95(2) of the Criminal Code for possession of loaded prohibited or restricted firearms violated s. 12 of the Charter.

The majority held that while the impugned minimums were not grossly disproportionate for the respondents themselves, they were grossly disproportionate in reasonably foreseeable licensing-type scenarios and therefore unconstitutional.

The infringement was not justified under s. 1, and the mandatory minimum provisions were declared of no force or effect.

The respondents' individual fit sentences were nevertheless upheld.

The Court dismissed Quebec’s appeal and held that Parliament could constitutionally require destruction of long-gun registry records under its criminal law power, while confirming Quebec had no legal entitlement to compel transfer of the data.

The Court allowed the appeal, holding that the appellant was constructively dismissed when he was indefinitely suspended with pay without adequate justification, and that his pension benefits were not deductible from wrongful dismissal damages.

The Court held that defence evidence about an unknown third party suspect is governed by general admissibility principles: relevance plus a balancing of probative value against prejudicial effect.

The trial judge erred by requiring proof on a balance of probabilities that the similar incident occurred and by treating the issue as known third party suspect evidence.

The appeal was dismissed and the order for a new trial was upheld.

In this criminal appeal, the accused challenged a sexual assault conviction on the basis that the trial judge failed to properly assess reliability and credibility.

The Court upheld the appellate majority’s conclusion that the trial judge’s reasons demonstrated consideration of both reliability and credibility concerns.

The Court adopted the reasoning of the intermediate appellate judge cited at para. 48.

The conviction remained undisturbed and the appeal was dismissed.

The Court held that core search-and-seizure and record-keeping provisions in the anti-money laundering and anti-terrorist financing scheme, as applied to lawyers and law firms, unjustifiably infringed Charter protections.

It confirmed sections 62, 63, 63.1 and 64 of the Act violated section 8 in this context, and that related regulatory obligations infringed section 7 when combined with inadequate privilege safeguards.

The appeal was allowed in part: findings against sections 5(i) and 5(j) were set aside, while the remaining constitutional relief largely stood.

On a criminal appeal concerning refusal to provide a breath sample, the Court addressed the burden applicable to proving a reasonable excuse under s. 794(2) of the Criminal Code.

The Court confirmed that the provision imposes a persuasive burden on the accused to establish an exception, exemption, proviso, excuse, or qualification prescribed by law.

The Court declined to address new issues advanced by interveners.

The appeal was dismissed, leaving the conviction in place.

The appellants challenged Criminal Code provisions barring assistance in dying, arguing the absolute prohibition violated section 7 Charter rights of competent adults with grievous and irremediable medical conditions causing intolerable suffering.

The Court held the blanket ban was overbroad relative to Parliament’s objective of protecting vulnerable persons and was not justified under section 1.

It declared section 14 and section 241(b) of no force or effect to the extent they prohibit physician-assisted death for competent, consenting adults meeting the defined criteria.

The declaration of invalidity was suspended for 12 months to allow a legislative response.

The Court also awarded special costs on a full indemnity basis to the appellants, with partial cost responsibility assigned to British Columbia.

This constitutional labour appeal addressed whether a statutory prohibition on designated essential-services employees striking substantially interfered with meaningful collective bargaining under s. 2(d) of the Charter.

The Court held that the right to strike is an indispensable component of meaningful collective bargaining, and that the statutory scheme’s unilateral employer designations and lack of a meaningful impasse-resolution substitute rendered the infringement unjustified under s. 1.

The declaration of invalidity concerning the essential-services regime was suspended for one year.

The companion challenge to amendments governing union certification, decertification, and employer communications was dismissed.

The Court allowed the appeal from the Federal Court of Appeal and set aside the divestiture order under s. 92 of the Competition Act.

A majority held the merger likely prevented competition substantially, but concluded the efficiencies defence in s. 96 succeeded because proven efficiency gains outweighed proven anti-competitive effects after the Commissioner failed to quantify quantifiable effects.

RCMP members challenged federal wage restraint measures, arguing that rollback of agreed wage increases without prior consultation violated freedom of association under s. 2(d) of the Charter.

The majority held the Expenditure Restraint Act did not substantially interfere with the existing consultation process and dismissed the appeal, while a dissent found unconstitutional unilateral interference.

The Court allowed the appeal and held that the labour relations regime imposed on RCMP members infringed freedom of association under s. 2(d) of the Charter.

It found the scheme lacked sufficient employee choice and independence for meaningful collective bargaining, and that excluding RCMP members from the statutory federal regime also infringed s. 2(d).

The infringements were not justified under s. 1, and invalidity of the offending statutory exclusion was suspended for 12 months.