Supreme Court of Canada

R. v. Beaudry, 2019 SCC 2, [2019] 1 S.C.R. 95

Parties

Her Majesty The Queen — Applicant

v.

Corporal R.P. Beaudry — Respondent

Indexed as: R. v. Beaudry

File No.: 38308

2019: January 14.

Coram

Gascon, Côté, Brown, Rowe and Martin JJ.

Subject

motion for a stay of a declaration of invalidity

Judgments and orders — Stay of execution — Declaration of invalidity — Court Martial Appeal Court of Canada declaring s. 130(1)(a) of the National Defence Act of no force or effect in its application to any civil offence for which maximum sentence is imprisonment for five years or more — Applicant appealing Court Martial Appeal Court's judgment and bringing motion to stay declaration of invalidity until final disposition of appeal — Balance of convenience does not favour granting stay — Stay denied — National Defence Act, R.S.C. 1985, c. N-5, s. 130(1)(a).

Cases Cited

Referred to: Manitoba (Attorney General) v. Metropolitan Stores Ltd., 1987 CanLII 79 (SCC), [1987] 1 S.C.R. 110; RJR — MacDonald Inc. v. Canada (Attorney General), 1994 CanLII 117 (SCC), [1994] 1 S.C.R. 311.

History

MOTION to stay the declaration of invalidity issued by the Court Martial Appeal Court of Canada (Bell C.J. and Gagné and Ouellette JJ.A.), 2018 CMAC 4, [2018] C.M.A.J. No. 4 (QL), 2018 CarswellNat 5345 (WL Can.). Motion dismissed.

Counsel

Anthony M. Tamburro, Bruce MacGregor and R. Dylan Kerr, for the applicant.

Mark Létourneau and Jean-Bruno Cloutier, for the respondent.

Reasons for Judgment

(paras. 1 to 3)

Gascon J. (Côté, Brown, Rowe and Martin JJ. concurring)

The order of the Court was delivered orally by

[1] Gascon J. — We are all of the view that the Crown's motion to stay the declaration of invalidity in the Court Martial Appeal Court judgment of September 19, 2018, should be dismissed.

[2] The applicable criteria set out in Manitoba (Attorney General) v. Metropolitan Stores Ltd., 1987 CanLII 79 (SCC), [1987] 1 S.C.R. 110, and RJR — MacDonald Inc. v. Canada (Attorney General), 1994 CanLII 117 (SCC), [1994] 1 S.C.R. 311, are not in dispute. The Crown has failed in our view to establish that the balance of convenience favours granting the stay sought.

[3] The motion is therefore dismissed.

Order accordingly.

Solicitor for the applicant: Canadian Military Prosecution Service, Ottawa.

Solicitor for the respondent: Defence Counsel Services, Gatineau.