SCC 2025

On a criminal appeal from the Court of Appeal for Ontario, the appellant challenged an order staying proceedings.

The Supreme Court heard the appeal and delivered oral judgment the same day.

The Court allowed the appeal, set aside the stay order, and remitted the matter for trial.

Reasons were stated to follow.

This appeal concerned whether Ontario courts had jurisdiction under s. 22 of the Children’s Law Reform Act to decide parenting issues for a child whose parents had lived in multiple countries.

The majority held that habitual residence under s. 22 turns on where the child resided and was at home at the prescribed time, not on shared parental settled intention.

Applying that approach, the Court found no basis to disturb the motion judge’s conclusion that the child was habitually resident in Ontario when the application commenced.

A dissent would have applied a parental intention approach and found habitual residence in Oman.

The appeal was dismissed with costs.

In a Crown sentence appeal arising from historical child sexual offences, the Court clarified that appellate intervention requires a legal error affecting sentence or demonstrable unfitness, and that sufficiency of reasons must be assessed functionally and contextually.

The Court held the sentencing judge’s factual findings and reasons were sufficient in light of the jury verdict, record, and submissions.

It further held that contemporary sentencing principles, including Friesen, apply to historical offences, subject to the maximum penalty in force when the offences were committed.

The appellate reduction was set aside, the original six-year concurrent sentence restored, and reincarceration ordered in the interests of denunciation and deterrence.

The appeal considered whether Criminal Code s. 725(1)(c) allows sentencing judges to treat as aggravating facts conduct that could ground a separate charge where such a charge had previously been laid but was no longer pending.

A majority held that the provision applies in those circumstances, provided the separate charge remained legally possible at sentencing and procedural fairness is preserved.

The Court emphasized Crown duties of fairness, including timely disclosure of aggravating facts and avoidance of ambush in plea contexts.

It found no reviewable sentencing error and restored the original sentence.

The dissent would have found unfair use of the evidence and upheld the reduced sentence.

A municipality and a developer entered into an agreement creating a “land area bank” allowing excess land transferred for park purposes to be credited against future development fees.

The contemplated future cadastral operations never occurred, and the developer’s successor sought compensation for the unused bank.

The Supreme Court held that the agreement effected novation, extinguishing the municipality’s original restitution obligation and replacing it with a new contractual obligation based on the bank.

The obligation was subject to a suspensive term tied to future cadastral operations, which the parties considered certain but whose timing was indeterminate.

Applying art. 1512 C.C.Q., the Court fixed the term at the date of the developer’s demand letter and held that damages for performance by equivalence were appropriate.

The accused was arrested without warrant days after an alleged sexual assault and made an incriminating videotaped statement during police interrogation.

At trial, the judge refused to hold a voir dire on the lawfulness of the arrest under s. 495(2) of the Criminal Code, concluding that s. 495(3) deemed the arrest lawful so long as s. 495(1) grounds existed.

The Supreme Court held that s. 495(2) imposes mandatory limits on warrantless arrest powers and that an arrest contrary to those limits may be unlawful and arbitrary under s. 9 of the Charter.

Section 495(3) only protects peace officers from liability in proceedings against them and does not bar an accused from challenging the legality of the arrest in their own criminal trial.

The refusal to hold a voir dire was an error of law requiring a new trial.

The Crown appealed a decision of the Nova Scotia Court of Appeal which had dismissed the Crown's appeal against an acquittal entered by a judge of the Nova Scotia Provincial Court.

The case concerned charges of sexual exploitation of a person under 18 years of age contrary to s. 153(1)(a) of the Criminal Code.

The Court was divided: three justices would allow the appeal for the reasons of Justice Derrick of the Nova Scotia Court of Appeal, while two justices would dismiss the appeal for the reasons of Chief Justice Wood of that court.

By majority, the appeal was allowed and a new trial ordered on the two relevant counts in the information.

The accused was convicted by jury of the attempted murder of her infant daughter and her mother, and of aggravated assault of the daughter, following an incident in which all three were found unconscious after being injected with insulin.

The Court of Appeal ordered a new trial on the attempted murder count relating to the mother on the basis that the jury instructions failed to distinguish between attempted murder and the offence of aiding suicide where the mother may have self-administered the insulin.

The majority of the Supreme Court of Canada allowed the Crown's appeal, restoring the conviction, finding no air of reality to the theory that the mother voluntarily injected herself with suicidal intent.

The majority held that trial judges must only instruct on theories lacking air of reality where there is a sufficient evidentiary foundation, and that the cumulative circumstantial evidence did not support a reasonable inference that the mother intended to end her own life.

The dissent would have dismissed the Crown's appeal, finding an air of reality to the inference of autonomous self-injection and holding that the trial judge was required to instruct the jury on the legal significance of I.F.'s possible voluntary participation to the actus reus of attempted murder.

The appellant appealed a judgment of the Court of Appeal of Quebec affirming the inadequacy of the trial judge's reasons.

A majority of the Court dismissed the appeal substantially for the reasons of the majority of the Court of Appeal concerning the inadequacy of the trial judge's reasons.

The dissenting judge would have allowed the appeal for the reasons given by the dissenting judge at the Court of Appeal.

The judgment was delivered orally on the day of hearing.

The Attorney General of Ontario intervened in the proceedings.

A Canadian mining company detected pit wall instability and a subsequent rockslide at its premier mine in Chile.

The company did not immediately disclose these events to investors, disclosing them about a month later as part of regular updates, after which its share price dropped 16 percent.

An investor sought leave under s. 138.8(1) of the Ontario Securities Act to commence a class action for failure to make timely disclosure of a material change.

The Supreme Court of Canada, dismissing the appeal, held that the motion judge erred in interpreting 'material change' too restrictively.

The undefined terms 'change', 'business', 'operations', and 'capital' should not be constrained by dictionary definitions but applied flexibly and contextually.

The leave test requires a plausible application of the legislative provisions to the facts, not merely a plausible statutory interpretation.

On the uncontested evidence that the events impacted the company's operations, there was a reasonable possibility the action could succeed at trial.

Two federal inmates serving indeterminate sentences applied for reclassification from medium- to minimum-security facilities.

Despite recommendations from their case management teams and wardens, administrative decision-makers denied the reclassifications.

The appellants sought habeas corpus ad subjiciendum with certiorari in aid, challenging the denials as unlawful deprivations of their residual liberty.

The majority held that a decision to deny a lower security reclassification constitutes a deprivation of liberty reviewable by way of habeas corpus, as it has the qualitative effect of restricting liberty without requiring proof of a change in status quo or a pre-existing legal entitlement to the less restrictive state.

The dissent maintained that habeas corpus is only available where an inmate has acquired a legal entitlement to the lower security classification, consistent with the framework in Dumas.

As both appellants had been reclassified and transferred by the time the appeal was heard, the Court allowed the appeal on the moot legal question of public importance.

The appellant was acquitted at trial on a charge of transmitting sexually explicit material to a child for the purpose of facilitating sexual assault or indecent exposure under s. 171.1(1)(b) of the Criminal Code.

The Court of Appeal set aside the acquittal and substituted a conviction, finding the trial judge erred in law by characterizing the appellant's conduct as merely flirtatious and by conflating the mens rea of the enumerated offence with that of the charged offence.

The Supreme Court of Canada upheld the conviction, confirming that to establish the inchoate offence under s. 171.1(1)(b), the Crown need only prove the accused transmitted sexually explicit material for the purpose of facilitating a listed offence, not that the accused intended to commit that offence.

The Court affirmed that facilitating includes grooming a child by reducing inhibitions or exploiting immaturity.

The Court added that characterizing an adult's sexualized conduct toward a child as flirtatious is a serious mischaracterization with no place in criminal justice proceedings involving sexual violence against children.

The appellant was charged with operating a motor vehicle with a blood alcohol concentration exceeding 80 mg percent, contrary to s. 320.14(1)(b) of the Criminal Code.

The Crown sought to rely on the statutory presumption of accuracy under s. 320.31(1)(a), adducing the certificate of the qualified technician and two analyst certificates.

The central issue was whether the Crown must prove, not merely disclose, the target value of the alcohol standard used in the system calibration check in order to rely on the presumption of accuracy.

The majority held that while the target value must be disclosed pursuant to s. 320.34(1)(b), it need not be independently proven at trial as a precondition to the presumption of accuracy, as Parliament did not intend it to be a statutory precondition.

Côté J. dissented, finding that both disclosure and proof of the target value are constitutionally required to preserve the presumption of innocence and the accused's right to make full answer and defence.

The appellant was charged with operating a motor vehicle with a blood alcohol concentration equal to or exceeding the legal limit within two hours of ceasing to operate the vehicle.

The Crown sought to rely on the statutory presumption of accuracy under s. 320.31(1) of the Criminal Code to prove the appellant's blood alcohol concentration, relying solely on the certificate of the qualified technician rather than producing independent evidence from the analyst who certified the alcohol standard.

The central question was whether s. 320.31(1)(a)'s requirement that the system calibration check be conducted with an alcohol standard certified by an analyst could be proved through the qualified technician's hearsay evidence.

The majority held that Parliament intended to preserve the evidentiary rule allowing the qualified technician's certificate to satisfy the precondition, finding that the phrase 'certified by an analyst' carries the same meaning as the former 'suitable for use' and that s. 320.32(1) creates a broad hearsay exception encompassing the qualified technician's statement about certification.

Côté J. dissented, concluding that the 2018 amendments established a new requirement that the Crown lead independent evidence from the analyst and that permitting double hearsay to ground a conclusive presumption of guilt is constitutionally suspect and contrary to the plain meaning of the provisions.

The appellant was charged with sexual assault arising from events in which the complainant, after consuming alcohol, suffered partial amnesia regarding the evening's events including most of the sexual activity.

The trial judge acquitted the appellant, finding the actus reus not established for the first series of sexual acts in the park because the Crown failed to prove the absence of the complainant's consent, and accepting that the appellant had an honest but mistaken belief in consent regarding the second series at his home even though the complainant lacked capacity there.

A majority of the Court of Appeal found errors of law in the trial judge's treatment of the evidence, specifically the improper use of the accused's testimony as direct evidence of the complainant's subjective consent and the failure to consider a large body of circumstantial evidence regarding the park incidents.

The majority of this Court dismissed the appeal, holding that the trial judge erred in law by treating direct evidence from the complainant as a requirement for establishing non-consent and by failing to consider all relevant circumstantial evidence, errors that had a material bearing on the acquittal.

The dissent would have allowed the appeal and restored the acquittal, finding that the trial judge properly considered all the evidence and that the majority's intervention amounted to interference with questions of fact.

The appellants challenged the Quebec Court of Appeal's declarations of unconstitutionality with respect to mandatory minimum sentences of one year's imprisonment for possession and accessing of child pornography under ss. 163.1(4)(a) and 163.1(4.1)(a) of the Criminal Code.

The majority held that a two-stage contextual and comparative analysis is required to determine whether a mandatory minimum sentence complies with s. 12 of the Charter, including the use of reasonably foreseeable scenarios.

Applying a reasonably foreseeable scenario of an 18-year-old who briefly receives and views a sexted image of a 17-year-old friend, the majority concluded that the mandatory minimum sentences were grossly disproportionate and violated s. 12 of the Charter.

The dissent would have allowed the appeal, finding that none of the hypothetical scenarios considered had a sufficient factual and legal connection with the cases before the Court and thus none could be considered reasonable.

The appellant Crown appealed from a decision of the Saskatchewan Court of Appeal which quashed the respondent's convictions for firearms offences and possession of identity documents, holding that his arrest for simple possession of a controlled substance was unlawful because s. 4.1(2) of the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act — the Good Samaritan Drug Overdose Act exemption — precluded charge and conviction and, by necessary implication, arrest for that offence.

The majority held that Parliament's purpose in enacting s. 4.1(2) was to save lives by removing disincentives to calling emergency services at the scene of a drug overdose, and that immunity from arrest is necessarily implied by the immunity from charge and conviction, since arrest and the searches incident to it would otherwise substantially undermine that legislative purpose.

The majority further held that the s. 4.1(2) immunity does not affect other existing police powers at the scene of an overdose, and that the evidence discovered through a search incident to the unlawful arrest must be excluded under s. 24(2) of the Charter.

The dissent concluded that the text, context, and purpose of s. 4.1(2) limit the exemption to charge and conviction only, and that the police did not infringe ss. 8 or 9 of the Charter.

In this appeal, the Court considered whether a creditor’s unsuccessful seizure attempt still interrupts the 10-year extinctive prescription period for rights resulting from a judgment under Quebec civil law.

The Court held that filing and serving a notice of execution under the Code of Civil Procedure forms part of the judicial application for seizure and is sufficient to interrupt prescription under art. 2892 C.C.Q. even if no property is ultimately seized.

Because the seizure proceedings were suspended by a bailiff rather than dismissed by a court, art. 2894 C.C.Q. did not retroactively cancel the interruption.

The debtor’s prescription defence therefore failed.

In an appeal concerning adverse possession of municipal parkland, the appellants sought possessory title to a fenced portion of backyard land registered to the municipality.

The majority held that recognizing a common law immunity for municipal parkland would conflict with Ontario’s statutory scheme under the Real Property Limitations Act and related legislation, which preserves matured possessory claims unless a statutory exception applies.

Because the statutory test for adverse possession was satisfied and no applicable statutory immunity barred the claim, the municipality’s title had been extinguished.

The appeal was allowed and the appellants were entitled to fee simple title to the disputed land.

The Supreme Court of Canada dismissed the appeal and held Ontario courts lack jurisdiction over the claims against the Italian defendants.

The majority accepted the Ontario cardmember agreement as a presumptive connecting contract but found the presumption rebutted because the real and substantial connection to Ontario was weak given the tort occurred in Italy and the foreign defendants’ relationship to Ontario was remote.

The dissent would have restored the motion judge’s ruling and allowed Ontario jurisdiction.