SCC 2015

The Court decided that under s. 20(a) of the International Transfer of Offenders Act, Omar Ahmed Khadr’s eight-year sentence could not be treated as five distinct concurrent eight-year sentences for placement purposes.

It held that the statutory scheme required placement in a provincial correctional facility and confirmed the Alberta Court of Appeal’s order.

The appeal was dismissed with costs.

In this constitutional and procedural appeal concerning minority-language education litigation, the Court upheld the finding that trial-level conduct created a reasonable apprehension of bias and warranted a new trial on remitted issues.

The Court confirmed that, absent territorial delegation, a minority-language school board cannot unilaterally expand admissions beyond criteria set by valid regulation under s. 23 of the Charter.

The Court rejected treating a judge’s community affiliation alone as a sufficient basis for bias without stronger contextual evidence.

It further held that statutory language-rights claims under territorial legislation should proceed at the new trial on a full evidentiary record.

The appeal was largely dismissed, with no order as to costs.

The appeal concerned whether Charter damages may be claimed against the provincial Crown for wrongful prosecutorial non-disclosure without pleading malice.

The Court held that malice is not required, but imposed a stringent threshold requiring intentional withholding, actual or imputed knowledge of materiality and likely impairment of full answer and defence, a Charter breach, and causation of legally cognizable harm.

The reasons emphasized good-governance limits to prevent defensive prosecution practices and unmeritorious civil claims, while preserving remedies for serious constitutional violations.

The claimant was permitted to pursue an amended pleading for s. 24(1) damages based on the alleged disclosure failures leading to wrongful convictions and prolonged incarceration.

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.

In a criminal Charter appeal, the appellant argued that trial delay became unreasonable due to a five-month period associated with a direct indictment.

The majority held that even if that period were attributed to the Crown, the overall delay remained reasonable after balancing all delay factors.

The court found no reversible error in the majority reasons below on the s. 11(b) analysis.

A dissenting minority would have allowed the appeal on the appellate dissent below.

The appeal was dismissed.

A private Catholic high school challenged the Minister’s refusal to exempt its proposed alternative ethics and religious culture program.

The Court held that requiring Loyola to teach Catholicism and Catholic ethics from a neutral perspective disproportionately limited religious freedom.

It allowed the appeal, set aside the Minister’s decision, and remitted the matter for reconsideration.

The Court also held that teaching about other religions and their ethics could still be required in a neutral and respectful manner.

In a manslaughter appeal, the Crown challenged an order for a new trial based on alleged misdirection to the jury concerning post-offence photographs and characterization of a school conversation as a confession.

The Court held the photographs were admissible on identity because appearance at the time of the offence was in dispute and any prejudice was manageable through limiting instructions.

Reading the charge as a whole, the Court found no realistic risk that jurors would reason impermissibly from broad eyewitness descriptions.

The Court also held that referring to confession in recounting the Crown's submissions was not a toxic instruction where the jury was repeatedly cautioned to assess the actual words and context.

The appeal was allowed, the conviction restored, and sentencing issues were remitted.

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.