Court File and Parties
Court File No.: CR-23-11404535 Date: 2025-08-07 Ontario Superior Court of Justice
Between: His Majesty the King (Crown) – and – Patrick Gordon MacDonald (Accused)
Counsel: Catherine Legault and Carly Noris, Counsel for the Crown Douglas Baum and Ariya Sheivari, Counsel for the Accused
Heard: June 26-27, 2025 (Ottawa)
Reasons on Qualifying Mr. Kriner as an Expert Witness
Justice Robert J. Smith
[1] The Crown seeks to have Matthew Kriner qualified as an expert witness to give opinion evidence at this sentencing hearing of the impact of Mr. MacDonald's, a.k.a. "Dark Foreigner"'s postings in the ideologically motivated violent extremism milieu and the significance of the images he created on far-right terrorist groups such as AWD, Siege Culture and the Terrorgram Collective.
[2] At the sentencing hearing, a voir dire was held and submissions were made by counsel primarily on the probative value versus the prejudice of admitting the proposed expert opinion evidence. I gave brief oral reasons for finding that Mr. Kriner was qualified to give expert evidence in the area sought by the Crown and advised that I would give more detailed reasons addressing all of the Mohan factors at a later date. These are the more detailed reasons.
[3] In R. v. Mohan, [1994] 2 SCR 9, the Supreme Court set out a two-step procedure to follow when deciding whether to admit expert evidence: firstly, deciding whether the proposed expert evidence is relevant; secondly, deciding whether it is necessary to assist the trier of fact; thirdly, the absence of an exclusionary rule; and finally, the proper qualification of the expert.
[4] Evidence of the impact of the offender's participation in the production of the propaganda and recruitment videos is relevant to the imposition of sentence to assess the gravity of the offence. There is no exclusionary rule that would apply to this evidence.
[5] Evidence of the impact of the offender's publications in the ideologically motivated violent extremism ("IMVE") milieu is necessary as the trier of fact does not have any knowledge of the IMVE milieu or of the impact of the offender's postings in this extremist milieu.
[6] Mr. Kriner obtained a Masters degree in Government Counterterrorism and Homeland Security from the Reichman University in 2018. He is currently the executive director of the Institute for Countering Digital Extremism. He has been the managing director of the Accelerationist Research Consortium from 2021 to present in addition to being an adjunct professor at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies graduate school of Middlebury College. He has also held several other positions at extremism threat management institutions.
[7] In addition, Mr. Kriner has published a peer-reviewed paper and a large number of articles in the area of analyzing militant Acceleration and terror related organizations.
[8] The defence did not argue that Mr. Kriner did not meet the four Mohan threshold requirements to give expert opinion evidence. For the above reasons I find that Mr. Kriner meets the four Mohan threshold requirements.
[9] The defence submitted that on the second step of the analysis, the probative value of Mr. Kriner's evidence is outweighed by its potential prejudicial effect. The Crown took the opposite position.
[10] I am satisfied that his evidence will provide context and describe the impact of the offender's actions. The expert's evidence is very relevant, and any prejudice is minimal as this is a judge alone trial and sentencing hearing. I find that the probative value exceeds any prejudice to the offender. For these reasons, I allowed Mr. Kriner to testify as an expert witness at the sentencing hearing in the areas outlined by the Crown.
Justice Robert J. Smith
Date: August 7, 2025
Released: August 7, 2025