SCC 2006

The appellants, members of the Tsartlip Indian Band, were convicted under provincial wildlife legislation for hunting at night with an illuminating device.

They appealed, arguing the legislation infringed their right to hunt under the North Saanich Treaty of 1852.

The Supreme Court of Canada allowed the appeal, holding that the treaty right to hunt includes the right to hunt at night with illumination.

The Court found that while the province can regulate safety, the absolute prohibition on night hunting was overbroad and constituted a prima facie infringement of the treaty right.

Consequently, the provincial law could not be incorporated under s. 88 of the Indian Act and was inapplicable to the appellants.

The appellant Indian band received federal funding under a Comprehensive Funding Arrangement (CFA), which was deposited into an off-reserve bank account.

The respondent creditor sought to garnish these funds to satisfy a consent judgment.

The band argued the funds were exempt from seizure under ss. 89 and 90(1)(b) of the Indian Act.

The Supreme Court of Canada held that the funds were not physically situated on a reserve under s. 89, rejecting a notional situs test.

Furthermore, the Court held that the word 'agreement' in s. 90(1)(b) is limited to agreements that flesh out treaty obligations.

Because the band failed to prove the CFA funds were ancillary to a treaty, the funds were not deemed to be situated on a reserve and were subject to garnishment.

The accused, a retirement home manager, was charged with assaulting several elderly residents.

By the time of trial, four complainants had died and one was incompetent to testify.

The trial judge admitted videotaped statements to the police from two deceased complainants under the principled exception to the hearsay rule, relying heavily on the striking similarities between the statements, and convicted the accused.

The Court of Appeal excluded the statements and acquitted the accused.

The Supreme Court of Canada dismissed the Crown's appeal, holding that the hearsay statements were inadmissible.

The Court clarified the principled approach to hearsay, ruling that trial judges may consider corroborative or conflicting evidence when assessing threshold reliability, modifying its previous ruling in R. v. Starr.

However, on the facts, the deceased complainant's statement lacked sufficient indicia of reliability to overcome the dangers of admitting untested hearsay.

The accused pleaded guilty to drug trafficking offences involving a cross-border smuggling operation.

At sentencing, the judge applied s. 725(1)(c) of the Criminal Code over the Crown's objections to consider three uncharged offences related to the operation.

The Supreme Court of Canada held that s. 725(1)(c) does not require the Crown's consent.

The Court found that two of the uncharged offences had a real and substantial connection to Canada and were properly considered, but the third occurred entirely in the United States and fell outside Canadian jurisdiction.

The Crown's appeal and the accused's cross-appeal were both dismissed.

The Crown appealed a conditional sentence imposed on the respondent for theft, seeking to introduce fresh evidence that the respondent had committed new fraud offences while awaiting sentencing.

The Supreme Court of Canada dismissed the appeal, holding that the fresh evidence was inadmissible because the Crown failed to exercise due diligence in adducing it at the sentencing hearing.

The Court also discussed the admissibility of uncharged offences at sentencing, with the majority holding that such evidence must comply with the procedural safeguards in section 725 of the Criminal Code.

The respondents, members of the Maliseet and Mi'kmaq First Nations, were charged with unlawful possession or cutting of Crown timber under New Brunswick's Crown Lands and Forests Act.

They claimed an aboriginal right to harvest timber for personal use.

The Supreme Court of Canada held that the respondents possess an aboriginal right to harvest wood for domestic uses on Crown lands traditionally used for that purpose by their respective First Nations.

The Court clarified the Van der Peet test, holding that a practice undertaken for survival purposes can be considered integral to an aboriginal community's distinctive culture, and that the right to harvest wood for domestic uses has no commercial dimension.

The appellant and a co-accused were charged with conspiracy to commit theft and conspiracy to possess stolen liquor.

The trial judge found no agreement had been established but convicted them of attempting to conspire.

The Court of Appeal affirmed the convictions.

On appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada, the Court held that an attempt to conspire to commit a substantive offence is not an offence under Canadian law.

The criminal law does not punish bad thoughts that are abandoned before an agreement is reached or an attempt is made to act upon them.

The appeal was allowed and acquittals were entered.

The appellant sought to enforce a U.S. consent decree and contempt order against the respondent in Ontario for trademark infringement.

The Supreme Court of Canada held that while the traditional common law rule should be changed to allow the enforcement of foreign non-monetary judgments in appropriate circumstances, the specific orders in this case were unenforceable.

The Court found the contempt order to be quasi-criminal in nature and the consent decree's extraterritorial application to be unclear, raising concerns about comity and the use of domestic judicial resources.

The appellant appealed a decision of the Quebec Court of Appeal that set aside her acquittal on charges of criminal negligence and ordered a new trial.

The Supreme Court of Canada allowed the appeal and restored the acquittal, adopting the reasons of the dissenting judge at the Court of Appeal.

The Regroupement pour la commercialisation des produits de l'érable inc. is a non-profit corporation whose activities were paralyzed by internal conflicts.

The Fédération des producteurs acéricoles du Québec applied for its dissolution and the designation of a liquidator.

The Supreme Court of Canada held that the suppletive scheme for the dissolution of legal persons set out in the Civil Code of Québec applies to a corporation constituted under Part III of the Companies Act when no specific legal scheme is applicable.

The Court upheld the dissolution and the attribution of the assets to the Fédération, but struck out the Court of Appeal's order relating to the payment of extra-judicial fees.

Apotex sought a Notice of Compliance (NOC) to market a generic version of AstraZeneca's drug Losec 20, comparing its product to the 1989 version of the drug.

AstraZeneca had withdrawn Losec 20 from the market in 1996 but subsequently listed two new patents against it.

The Minister of Health issued the NOC to Apotex without requiring it to address the new patents, as Apotex's product did not use the new technology.

AstraZeneca applied for judicial review.

The Supreme Court of Canada held that under the Patented Medicines (Notice of Compliance) Regulations, a generic manufacturer is only required to address patents relevant to the innovator product actually copied.

Since Apotex did not claim bioequivalence to the technology in the after-issued patents, it was not subject to the 24-month statutory freeze for those patents.

The syndic of the Ordre des pharmaciens began an inquiry into allegations that generic drug manufacturers were providing illegal kickbacks to pharmacists.

The syndic requested documents from a manufacturer under s. 122 of the Professional Code.

The manufacturer refused, arguing the provision only applied to professionals.

The syndic sought and obtained a general law injunction to compel disclosure.

The Court of Appeal reversed.

The Supreme Court of Canada allowed the appeal, holding that s. 122 applies to third parties and that a general law injunction is available to enforce the syndic's investigatory powers despite the existence of specific penal remedies in the Code.

The appellant, who grew marijuana for medical purposes, was charged with unlawfully producing cannabis and elected to be tried by a judge and jury.

At trial, the judge directed the jury to return a guilty verdict and told them they were bound to abide by his direction.

The jury returned a guilty verdict, which was upheld by the Court of Appeal.

The Supreme Court of Canada allowed the appeal, holding that the trial judge deprived the appellant of his constitutional right to a trial by jury under s. 11(f) of the Charter by usurping the jury's function.

The Court further held that the curative proviso in s. 686(1)(b)(iii) of the Criminal Code could not apply because there was, in effect, no jury trial at all.

A new trial was ordered.

The taxpayers, Imperial Oil and Inco, issued debentures in U.S. dollars and later redeemed them.

Due to the appreciation of the U.S. dollar against the Canadian dollar, they suffered foreign exchange losses.

They sought to deduct these losses under s. 20(1)(f) of the Income Tax Act.

The Minister of National Revenue disallowed the deductions, treating them as capital losses under s. 39(2).

The Supreme Court of Canada held that s. 20(1)(f) is limited to original issue discounts and does not permit the deduction of foreign exchange losses, which must be claimed as capital losses under s. 39.

The plaintiffs were successful in a personal injury action and were awarded damages and costs.

The trial judge also awarded a risk premium of $192,600 to the plaintiffs' counsel, payable by the defendants, because counsel had carried the litigation for four years without remuneration.

The Court of Appeal upheld the risk premium.

The Supreme Court of Canada allowed the appeal and set aside the risk premium, holding that the risk of non-payment to a plaintiff's lawyer is not a relevant factor under Rule 57.01(1) of the Ontario Rules of Civil Procedure when fixing costs payable by an unsuccessful defendant.

The accused was convicted of breaking and entering with intent to commit sexual assault and sentenced to imprisonment followed by probation.

The probation order required him to abstain from alcohol and drugs and to submit to bodily substance testing on demand to monitor compliance.

The Supreme Court of Canada held that while an abstention condition is authorized, sentencing judges have no statutory authority under the Criminal Code to compel the provision of bodily samples for enforcement purposes as part of a probation order.

A freelance author brought a class proceeding alleging copyright infringement arising from newspaper publishers' republication of articles in electronic databases and CD-ROM archives.

The Court held that databases presenting articles as decontextualized individual works did not reproduce the publishers' collective newspaper work and therefore infringed freelance authors' copyrights absent consent, but that the CD-ROM product sufficiently preserved the linkage to daily editions and was a valid reproduction of the newspaper.

The Court further held that only exclusive licences require writing under the Copyright Act, and that staff writers should not have been included in the class because they had no cause of action unless they had exercised their statutory right to restrain publication.

The appeal was dismissed and the cross-appeal allowed only with respect to the CD-ROMs.

The appellant sought to appeal his convictions to the Supreme Court of Canada as of right, relying on a dissent in the court below.

The Supreme Court quashed the appeal, finding that the dissent relied upon could not be construed as a dissent on a question of law alone.

As leave to appeal was not sought, the Court lacked jurisdiction to hear the appeal.

The respondent was securing the engine cover of his pleasure craft with a bungee cord in preparation for highway transport when the cord slipped and struck the appellant in the eye.

The appellant brought a personal injury action, and the respondent sought to limit his liability under the federal Canada Shipping Act.

The Supreme Court of Canada held that the allegedly negligent acts were not governed by federal maritime law, as securing a boat for highway transport is not integrally connected to navigation.

Therefore, provincial law applied, and the respondent could not claim the benefit of the federal limitation of liability.

The appellant was convicted of manslaughter after stabbing a victim during an altercation.

At trial, the judge refused to charge the jury with the defence of self-defence under s. 34(1) of the Criminal Code, finding it lacked an air of reality.

The Court of Appeal upheld this decision.

The Supreme Court of Canada allowed the appeal, agreeing with the dissenting appellate judge that the defence of self-defence should have been put to the jury, and ordered a new trial.