CITATION: R. v. Stronach #4, 2026 ONSC 3030

COURT FILE NO.: CR-25-00000284-0000

DATE: 20260619

ONTARIO

SUPERIOR COURT OF JUSTICE

BETWEEN:

HIS MAJESTY THE KING

– and –

FRANK STRONACH

Defendant

Jelena Vlacic and Julia Bellehumeur, for the Crown

David Tice, for the Crown on the Abuse of Process Application

Leora Shemesh, Rameez Sewani, and Michael Little, for the Defendant

HEARD: February 12, 13, 17, 18, 19, 20, 23, 24, 25, 26, and March 2, 3, 4, 6, 9, 10, 11, 31, and April 1, and 9, 2026.

NOTICE OF RESTRICTION ON PUBLICATION

Pursuant to s. 486.4(1) of the Criminal Code, information that may identify any complainant may not be published, broadcasted, or transmitted in any manner.

molloy j.:

REASONS FOR JUDGMENT

A. INTRODUCTION

1Seven women separately alleged various forms of sexual abuse by Frank Stronach on dates ranging from 1977 to 1990. None of them were known to each other. Mr. Stronach was not charged with these offences until 2024. Mr. Stronach elected to be tried by me, sitting without a jury. On various dates in the months leading up to the trial, I heard pre-trial motions, which are the subject of separate oral and written decisions.¹ The trial then commenced before me, starting on February 12, 2026. Each of the seven complainants testified. The Crown also called one other corroborative witness relating to one of the complainants. The defence called evidence from 12 witnesses, three of whom were police officers. Mr. Stronach did not testify.

2Between 1977 and 1990, Mr. Stronach was a wealthy businessman with a home in the Newmarket area where he lived with his wife and children. He was involved in many businesses in the Toronto area. His main business was through his company Magna International, which was a large auto parts manufacturer. Of relevance to this case, he was also active in the horse racing business, both in Canada and the United States, and in the 70s and 80s he had an ownership interest in a popular nightclub and restaurant in Toronto (Rooney’s and Le Connoisseur). At the time of the earliest of the charges in this trial, Mr. Stronach would have been 45-46 years old. At the time of the trial before me, nearly 50 years later, he was 93.

3At various points during the evidence at trial, Crown counsel advised that they were not able to establish proof beyond a reasonable doubt with respect to the assaults alleged by certain of the complainants. The Crown was prepared to withdraw those charges, but the defence preferred a finding of Not Guilty, to which the Crown acquiesced. I agree with the Crown’s considered and ethical assessment. In light of the evidence of the complainants and things learned through cross-examination, it would be unsafe to convict on those charges. Accordingly, I find Mr. Stronach not guilty on the charges relating to the complainants B.T., N.J., and V.D. (Counts, 3, 4, 7, and 8).

4At the end of the Crown’s case, the defence brought a motion for a directed verdict on Count 5 (attempted rape with respect to V.T.) and Count 12 (sexual assault with respect to A.S.). Counts 5 and 6 both relate to the same incident involving the complainant V.T. (Count 5 alleges attempted rape and Count 6 alleges indecent assault). The Crown conceded that, based on the testimony of V.T., attempted rape could not be proven beyond a reasonable doubt. I agree. Count 5 is dismissed. I will deal with this issue in my analysis of the counts involving V.T. later in my reasons. I believe the testimony of V.T. with respect to the assault she described by Mr. Stronach in 1977. I therefore have found Mr. Stronach guilty of the historic offence of indecent assault as alleged in Count 6.

5The issue raised on the directed verdict with respect to Count 12 related to the date of the alleged offence involving A.S. and which Criminal Code regime it falls within. I will deal with that issue later in my reasons relating to A.S. However, in my view, if there was uncertainty about whether this occurred in 1982 (when the charge would have been indecent assault) or 1983 (when the charge would have been sexual assault), the appropriate charge would be assault simpliciter, which is a lesser included offence of both. I ruled that the Crown would be permitted to amend the indictment to conform to the evidence in this situation. Ms. Shemesh, for the defence, agreed that the final determination could therefore be made at the end of the trial. Ultimately, my verdict on this count is that the facts alleged by the complainant are proven. I am also satisfied on the evidence that the incident occurred after the legislative amendments in 1983 and that the essential elements of sexual assault have been established. I therefore find Mr. Stronach guilty of sexual assault on Count 12. My more detailed reasons follow.

6There were two motions filed, both of which it was agreed I would hear at the close of the evidence: (1) a defence motion for a stay of proceedings for abuse of process based, essentially, on the conduct of the police and Crown; and (2) a Crown motion to have the evidence of each remaining complainant considered as similar fact evidence in respect of the other charges. At the end of the trial, Ms. Shemesh conceded that the abuse of process alleged could not be characterized as sufficiently serious to meet the heavy burden required for a stay of proceedings, but that it should be taken into account in assessing the weight of the evidence on each remaining count. I will therefore deal with this issue briefly in a general way at the outset, but address the weight of the evidence in my analysis under the charges relating to each complainant.

7In the course of the argument of the count-to-count similar fact application and prior to the abuse of process argument, I realized that my determination on the merits with respect to one of the complainants would make a difference to those motions. I therefore advised counsel that I could not be satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt with respect to the charges involving L.S. I therefore find Mr. Stronach not guilty on those charges (Counts 1 and 2), for the reasons set out below.

8By the end of the trial, there were three complainants remaining, as follows:

V.T. (Count 6-1977): V.T. was a 25-year-old legal secretary who met Mr. Stronach in passing at Rooney’s. The allegation relates to an incident in an apartment on Balliol Avenue, where he took her after having dinner with her at Rooney’s. She testified that, without warning, Mr. Stronach pushed her over the upholstered arm of a living room chair, pulled up her skirt, and ground his groin area into hers, over her underwear. She stood up, protested, and left. He did not attempt to stop her.

J.J. (Counts 9, 10 and 11 – one incident between 1981 and 1983): J.J. was a secretary at an investment bank who met Mr. Stronach at Rooney’s when she was in her mid-twenties. She testified that she went on a dinner date with Mr. Stronach and after that to his condo at the Harbourfront, where he violently raped her over her protests.

A.S. (count 12 –1983-1984) – A.S. had been a waitress at Rooney’s but was dismissed. She was 21- 22 years old at that time. She testified that she called Mr. Stronach to ask for his help. He took her out for dinner to discuss it and after that to his condo at the Harbourfront. While at the condo she began to feel uncomfortable and afraid and told Mr. Stronach she wanted to leave. She alleges that while helping her with her coat, he groped her under the coat, running his hands up and down along the sides of her breasts and hips. She protested and he immediately stepped back, allowing her to leave and to be driven back to her home by his chauffeur.

9I believe the evidence of V.T. and A.S. that the incidents they allege did happen. With respect to V.T., I am satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt that Mr. Stronach committed the offence of indecent assault. With respect to A.S., he is guilty of sexual assault.

10There are too many uncertainties about the incident alleged by J.J. for me to be satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt as to Mr. Stronach’s guilt of the violent rape she described. I therefore find him Not Guilty on those counts.

11The following is a chart summarizing my findings on each count for clarity:

Count

Finding

Count 1(L.S.) – rape (historic offence)

Not Guilty

Count 2 (L.S.) – indecent assault (historic offence)

Not Guilty

Count 3 (B.T.) – sexual assault

Not Guilty

Count 4 (B.T.) – unlawful confinement

Not Guilty

Count 5 (V.T.) – attempted rape

Not Guilty

Count 6 (V.T.) – indecent assault (historic offence)

Guilty

Count 7 (N.J.) – sexual assault

Not Guilty

Count 8 (V.D.) – sexual assault

Not Guilty

Count 9 (J.J.) – rape (historic offence)

Not Guilty

Count 10 (J.J.) – indecent assault (historic offence)

Not Guilty

Count 11(J.J) – sexual assault

Not Guilty

Count 12 (A.S.) – sexual assault

Guilty

12In the reasons that follow, I will first deal with some general principles that arise in all sexual assault trials and some that have specific application to this case. I will then deal with the similar fact evidence application, followed by my analysis of the evidence and detailed factual findings relating to four complainants: L.S.; A.S.; V.T.; and J.J. These reasons are organized under the following headings:

A. INTRODUCTION (paras. 1-12)

B. GENERAL LEGAL PRINCIPLES (paras. 13-25)

C. SIMILAR FACT EVIDENCE

(i) General Principles (paras. 26-27)

(ii) Threshold Issue (paras. 28-32)

(iii) The Test to be Applied (paras. 33-42)

(iv) Application to this Case (paras. 43-54)

D. ABUSE OF PROCESS

(i) Background and Introduction (paras. 55-59)

(ii) The Issues Remaining at the End of the Trial (paras. 60-62)

(iii) Conclusions (paras. 63-69)

E. CHARGES RELATING TO L.S. (COUNTS 1 AND 2)

(i) The Central Allegations (paras. 70-81)

(ii) The Date of the Alleged Incident (paras. 82-95)

(iii) Employment at Beechwood Farms (paras. 96-109)

(iv) Reliability of L.S.’s Evidence Generally (paras. 110-118)

(v) The Alleged Sexual Assault at Rooney’s (paras. 119-130)

(vi) Conclusions re The Alleged Assaults at Rooney’s (paras. 131-132)

(vii) Conclusions re The Alleged Rape at the Harbourfront Condo (paras. 133-142)

(viii) Motivation to Fabricate (paras. 143-151)

F. CHARGES RELATING TO V.T. (COUNTS 5 and 6)

(i) The Central Allegations (paras. 152-155)

(ii) Credibility and Reliability Analysis (paras. 156-171)

(iii) Count 5: Attempted Rape (para. 172)

(iv) Count 6: Indecent Assault (paras. 173-177)

G. CHARGE RELATING TO A.S. (COUNT 12)

(i) The Central Allegations (paras. 178-188)

(ii) Credibility and Reliability Analysis (paras. 189-206)

(iii) Count 12: Sexual Assault (paras. 207-216)

H. CHARGES RELATING TO J.J. (COUNTS 9, 10, and 11)

(i) The Central Allegations (paras. 217-220)

(ii) Analysis of Credibility and Reliability (para. 221)

(a) Testimony in Chief: The First Meeting and Dinner Date (paras. 222-227)

(b) Testimony in Chief: The Move to the Apartment and the Incident on the Couch (paras. 228-232)

(c) Testimony in Chief: The Incident in the “Den” (paras. 233-235)

(d) Testimony in Chief: The Aftermath (paras. 236-239)

(e) Testimony in Chief: First Disclosure and Possible Tainting (paras. 240-243)

(f) Cross-Examination – General comments (paras. 244-248)

(g) Cross-Examination: The First Meeting and Dinner Date (paras. 249-253)

(h) Cross-Examination: The Move to the Apartment and Incident on the Couch (paras. 254-261)

(i) Cross-Examination – The Incident in the “Den” (paras. 262-285)

(j) Possible Tainting and Collusion (paras. 286-302)

(k)Motive to Fabricate (paras. 303-307)

(l) Absence of Foreplay (para. 308)

(iii) Conclusions re Charges Involving J.J. (paras. 309-317)

I. CONCLUSION (paras. 318-324)

B. GENERAL LEGAL PRINCIPLES

13The allegations in these charges go back over 40 years. None of the complainants disclosed their allegations close in time to when they occurred. The absence of a contemporaneous report does not mean the allegations are not true, nor does it give rise to any inference in that regard. However, usually the greater the gap in time from the event in question to the first report, the more difficult it will be to piece together what actually happened. This is due mainly to the frailty of human memory over a significant period of time.

14It is important to note that no inference can be taken from the mere fact that a victim delayed in reporting a sexual assault. Some victims report immediately, others only report after many years have passed, and some never report it. There can be many, and varied, reasons for a delayed report. Often, victims of assault are too traumatized to discuss the incident at all; sometimes they fear not being believed, particularly if their abuser is a person in authority or generally well-regarded in the community; sometimes they are too fearful or embarrassed to make a complaint; all too often they have a misplaced sense of guilt and may blame themselves for having gotten themselves into the situation, or having too much to drink, or failing to fight back. The reasons for not reporting initially, or the circumstances surrounding the timing of when a report was eventually made, can in some instances be relevant in assessing credibility. However, the timing of when a victim made a complaint, standing alone, can never give rise to an inference that she is not telling the truth.²

15Corroboration of a complainant’s testimony is not required. An accused can be convicted solely on the evidence of one person, provided that the evidence of that person is sufficiently reliable and credible to meet the criminal standard of proof beyond a reasonable doubt. However, given the inevitable gaps in memory and confused memories that can arise where many years have passed since the date of the assault, corroborative evidence can often be useful to buttress the reliability of a complainant’s evidence.

16Credibility has to do with whether a witness is being honest when giving their evidence. Sometimes, in determining the credibility of a witness, it can be relevant to take into account whether that person had a motive to lie. However, the absence of a known motive is not the same thing as there being no motive, nor does the absence of a known motive establish that the witness must be telling the truth. Most importantly, there is no burden on the defence to establish a complainant’s motive to fabricate. Essentially, the presence or absence of a motive to lie is simply a factor that can be taken into account, depending on the circumstances. ³

17Reliability has to do with the accuracy of the evidence provided by a witness. An honest witness can provide evidence that is completely inaccurate and unreliable, even though the witness believes it to be true. The witness may simply be mistaken, or may have misremembered an event over time. This is a particular concern in cases of historic assaults where many years have elapsed since the time of the subject incident.

18Just as with myths and stereotypes about whether a “real victim” would immediately go to the police, it is important to recognize that mis-remembering or forgetting facts relating to an assault does not mean that the complainant is not telling the truth to the best of her ability. It is well-known that trauma can interfere with a person’s ability to form and retain memories of events surrounding and during an traumatic event. Witnesses will often have gaps in their memories and be unable to recall some of the details of the event. Where these gaps or inaccuracies in memory are about trivial details, this is understandable and may have no impact on the assessment of their credibility or reliability. It is also well-known that there is no defined way in which a person will react during or after being sexually assaulted, although there are many myths and stereotypes about what a typical victim will do. Falling back on myths and stereotypes about what is expected in these situations is not a valid way to determine either reliability or credibility.⁴

19It is also important to remember that the brain will often fill in memory gaps, particularly over time. The person will often remember these filled-in pieces of information as real. If those mis-remembered details are proven to be false, this is not necessarily a reflection on the person’s veracity. A person can honestly believe their memory to be true, even though it is clearly false. This can, however, undermine the reliability of the witness’s memory, depending on the circumstances and other evidence.

20Determining the credibility and reliability of evidence is always a difficult task, but it is particularly so when the event was traumatic and happened many years before. In addition to the always present problem of memory fading over time, there are also problems with memories not being fully formed as a result of trauma and being “filled in” after the fact, whether consciously or unconsciously.

21The bottom line, however, is that this is a criminal trial and the burden remains on the Crown to prove the charges beyond a reasonable doubt in the same way as any other criminal trial. The fact that memories are faulty and particulars are missing, while understandable, does not change the standard of proof. A trial judge may understand the trauma experienced by a victim of sexual assault, and may understand how that might explain gaps in memory, inaccurate memories, and the way the victim reacted at the time and afterwards. The trial judge may even believe portions of the complainant’s evidence. However, at the end of the trial, the trial judge must have sufficient reliable and credible evidence to be able to say she is satisfied of the accused’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Absent that level of proof, the accused is entitled to an acquittal.

22There is a presumption of innocence for any accused charged with a crime, and sexual assault is no different. Further, that presumption is not rebutted unless and until the Crown has proven each of the essential elements of the offence charged beyond a reasonable doubt. This is a high standard and can often be difficult to meet where everything depends on one person’s memory of traumatic events from the distant past.

23There are two components of a criminal offence: the actus reus (what acts must be proven to establish the offence); and the mens rea (the level of intent required of an accused). For the offence of sexual assault, the actus reus the Crown must prove is that the accused touched the complainant in a sexual manner without the complainant’s consent. At this stage, all the Crown must prove is what was in the complainant’s mind, i.e. whether the complainant was voluntarily and knowingly consenting to the sexual touching. However, the complainant’s mere assertion of non-consent is not necessarily enough to prove this element. It is open to the trial judge to reject that evidence, or to find that the evidence does not rise to the level of proof beyond a reasonable doubt, depending on the judge’s assessment of the complainant’s reliability and credibility.⁵

24The burden is also on the Crown to prove that the accused had the requisite state of mind to constitute the offence. For sexual assault, the mens rea element requires that the touching be deliberate (not accidental) and that it be undertaken knowingly.⁶ In other words, the accused must know in his own mind that the complainant is not consenting. A complainant may communicate consent to sexual touching by words or actions. The fact that the complainant does not vocalize a lack of consent or does not struggle or fight back is not enough to constitute consent. However, where the complainant testifies that she said “No” or struggled to resist the accused, and where that evidence is accepted by the trial judge, it will typically be inferred that the accused must have been aware the complainant was not consenting, or at the very least, was wilfully blind to that fact.⁷

25There is sometimes reference to the “defence” of honest but mistaken belief in consent. This is not, technically speaking, a “defence”, but rather an articulation of an absence of a required element of mens rea. The Crown is required to prove that the accused knew the complainant was not consenting, and proceeded anyway. Recklessness or wilful blindness as to whether the complainant was consenting will not be sufficient.⁸ There must be a basis to conclude that the accused honestly believed that the complainant was consenting. My focus here is on a situation where the complainant, in her own mind, is not consenting but the accused honestly believes that she is. In that situation, the Crown will have failed to prove that the accused had the required state of mind to constitute the offence. Usually, this situation arises from the testimony of the accused that the complainant appeared to be consenting, or was participating in some manner, and he believed that she was consenting to the activity. However, the onus remains on the Crown to prove the mental element, regardless of whether the accused testifies in his own defence.⁹ There is no burden on the accused to prove that he honestly believed the complainant was consenting. It is enough for the accused to raise a reasonable doubt about the required mental state. That reasonable doubt typically comes from the accused’s own testimony, but it can also arise from the evidence as a whole, in the absence of any evidence coming directly from the accused.¹⁰

C. SIMILAR FACT EVIDENCE

(i) General Principles

26The Crown applied to permit the evidence of each of the remaining four complainants to be considered in relation to the credibility and reliability of the others (often referred to as count-to-count similar fact evidence). The general rule is that the evidence with respect to one complainant cannot be considered with respect to assessing the reliability and credibility of other counts on the indictment. Rather, in the normal course, the evidence on separate counts must be considered as if in watertight compartments. This is to prevent the judge from allowing a finding about other misconduct by an accused to taint their reasoning on a separate charge. Essentially, the trier of fact is prohibited from reasoning that because an accused committed sexual assault on one occasion, he is a person of bad character and is more likely to be guilty of other accusations of sexual assault.

27There are exceptions to almost every rule of evidence, and this is one of them. However, before introducing similar fact evidence, the Crown is required to apply to the trial judge for permission to do so. If the evidence sought to be tendered relates to conduct outside the indictment, such an application is brought before that evidence can be heard. However, where the Crown is relying on count-to-count similar fact evidence, the application is typically heard at the end of the evidence, as was the case here. Stripped to its bare bones, the test for the admissibility of similar fact evidence is whether its probative value outweighs any prejudicial effect.

(ii) Threshold Issue

28There is a threshold that must be met before the evidence of one complainant can be used in relation to the evidence of another complainant on a separate count. Before considering the allegations of one complainant in order to bolster the evidence of another, that evidence must first be “reasonably capable of belief.”¹¹ Although this threshold comes up most often in trials where the proposed evidence is not the subject of a charge otherwise before the trier of fact, it also applies in a count-to-count similar fact application.¹²

29When this issue arises on count-to-count similar fact evidence in a judge alone trial, the test can be awkward to apply because it involves a credibility assessment being made prior to a final determination as to the ultimate findings with respect to the complainant’s evidence. I have borne this in mind when applying the standard, particularly with respect to the complainant L.S.

30As I explain in detail below, the evidence of L.S. does not meet this threshold. Her evidence is riddled with inconsistencies and impossibilities. It is incapable of belief. It would be unfair to the fair trial rights of the accused to use any elements of L.S.’s evidence to buttress the testimony of complainants on other counts.

31Although I have ultimately not found Mr. Stronach guilty of the alleged assault on J.J., I am not of the view that her evidence was not capable of belief in the context of this threshold test. Rather, I have considered the similar fact evidence application based on the evidence of these three complainants: V.T.; A.S.; and J.J.

32It was clear to me at the time of the argument of this motion that the testimony of L.S. did not meet this threshold. I therefore advised counsel of this determination so that the argument on the admissibility of the similar fact evidence could be more focused on the similarities between the three remaining complainants.

(iii) The Test to be Applied

33The seminal case on the issue of similar fact evidence is the 2002 decision of the Supreme Court of Canada in R. v. Handy. In that case, the general rule for the exclusion of this type of evidence is described as follows:

The respondent is clearly correct in saying that evidence of misconduct beyond what is alleged in the indictment which does no more than blacken his character is inadmissible. Nobody is charged with having a “general” disposition or propensity for theft or violence or whatever. The exclusion thus generally prohibits character evidence to be used as circumstantial proof of conduct, i.e., to allow an inference from the “similar facts” that the accused has the propensity or disposition to do the type of acts charged and is therefore guilty of the offence. The danger is that the jury might be confused by the multiplicity of incidents and put more weight than is logically justified on the ex-wife’s testimony (“reasoning prejudice”) or by convicting based on bad personhood (“moral prejudice”): Great Britain Law Commission, Consultation Paper No. 141, Evidence in Criminal Proceedings: Previous Misconduct of a Defendant (1996), at § 7.2.¹³

34Notwithstanding the general exclusionary rule, there can be cases where the similar fact evidence of prior misconduct can be admissible. To justify admission of such evidence, the onus is on the Crown to establish on a balance of probabilities that in this particular case, the probative value of the similar fact evidence outweighs its potential prejudice. In Handy, the Court held:

While emphasizing the general rule of exclusion, courts have recognized that an issue may arise in the trial of the offence charged to which evidence of previous misconduct may be so highly relevant and cogent that its probative value in the search for truth outweighs any potential for misuse, per Sopinka J., dissenting, in B. (C.R.), supra, at p. 751:

The fact that the alleged similar facts had common characteristics with the acts charged, could render them admissible, and, therefore, supportive of the evidence of the complainant. In order to be admissible, however, it would be necessary to conclude that the similarities were such that absent collaboration, it would be an affront to common sense to suggest that the similarities were due to coincidence . . . . [Emphasis added in Handy.]¹⁴

35There are two types of prejudice to be addressed: reasoning prejudice and moral prejudice. The parties agree that reasoning prejudice does not arise here. The focus here is on whether the probative value of the evidence outweighs the moral prejudice of permitting it to be considered.

36Clearly, when considering whether a particular act was committed, similar fact evidence in relation to a different act involving a different complainant is not direct evidence in relation to the charge under consideration. Rather, it is a form of circumstantial evidence. In R. v. Shearing, the Supreme Court noted this and held that before similar fact evidence can be admitted, the Crown must show that it is capable of supporting a double inference: (1) that the accused has a specific propensity to commit certain acts (as shown in the similar fact evidence); and (2) that this demonstrated propensity gives rise to the inference that the accused acted in accordance with that propensity in the other situations before the court. The Court held:

The similar fact evidence provided by the G complainants was only circumstantial evidence in relation to the non-G counts and vice versa. As with all circumstantial evidence, the cogency of the similar fact evidence rested entirely on the validity of the inferences it could be said to support with respect to the issues in question. The Crown’s argument for its admission was that the jury could legitimately make a “double inference”, firstly that the appellant has a situation-specific propensity to groom adolescent girls for sexual gratification by exploiting pseudo-religious elements of the Kabalarian cult and/or its related domestic arrangements at the Kabalarian “Centre”, and secondly, that his character or propensity thus established gives rise to the further inference that he proceeded in that way with the complainant in each of the charges under the jury’s consideration.¹⁵

37The probative value of the evidence must be assessed based on a relevant issue in question in the trial. The Crown is required to identify the disputed issue to which the similar fact evidence is relevant. As stated in Handy:

The requirement to identify the material issue “in question” (i.e., the purpose for which the similar fact evidence is proffered) does not detract from the probative value/prejudice balance, but is in fact essential to it. Probative value cannot be assessed in the abstract. The utility of the evidence lies precisely in its ability to advance or refute a live issue pending before the trier of fact.¹⁶

38The Crown in this case has identified the actus reus of the offence (whether the alleged acts happened) as the central issue to which the similar fact evidence is relevant. This is central to the dispute in this case.

39Because similar fact evidence is admitted on the basis of an objective improbability of coincidence, the strength (or probative value) of similar fact evidence is based on the degree of similarity between the acts.¹⁷ General or generic similarities will carry little probative value. Conversely, highly similar acts that are unique and distinctive will carry more weight. The assessment of probative value is based on the similarities in the evidence viewed cumulatively and whether the degree of similarity can be explained as mere coincidence. The Supreme Court of Canada in R. v. Arp described it this way:

…the majority in B. (C.R.), at pp. 732‑33, rejected the proposition that the evidence must show a “striking similarity” between the acts in question in order for the evidence to have the requisite probative value. I agree that the requirement of “striking similarity” needs to be qualified. This point is carefully made in R. v. P., [1991] 3 All E.R. 337 (H.L.)…:

When a question of the kind raised in this case arises I consider that the judge must first decide whether there is material upon which the jury would be entitled to conclude that the evidence of one victim, about what occurred to that victim, is so related to the evidence given by another victim, about what happened to that other victim, that the evidence of the first victim provides strong enough support for the evidence of the second victim to make it just to admit it, notwithstanding the prejudicial effect of admitting the evidence. This relationship, from which support is derived, may take many forms and while these forms may include ‘striking similarity’ in the manner in which the crime is committed, . . . the necessary relationship is by no means confined to such circumstances. Relationships in time and circumstances other than these may well be important relationships in this connection. Where the identity of the perpetrator is in issue, and evidence of this kind is important in that connection, obviously something in the nature of what has been called in the course of the argument a signature or other special feature will be necessary. To transpose this requirement to other situations where the question is whether a crime has been committed, rather than who did commit it, is to impose an unnecessary and improper restriction upon the application of the principle. [Emphasis added.]

Instead, a principled approach to the admission of similar fact evidence will in all cases rest on the finding that the accused’s involvement in the alleged similar acts or counts is unlikely to be the product of coincidence. This conclusion ensures that the evidence has sufficient probative force to be admitted, and will involve different considerations in different contexts. Where, as here, similar fact evidence is adduced on the issue of identity, there must be a high degree of similarity between the acts for the evidence to be admitted. For example, a unique trademark or signature will automatically render the alleged acts “strikingly similar” and therefore highly probative and admissible. In the same way, a number of significant similarities, taken together, may be such that by their cumulative effect, they warrant admission of the evidence. [Emphasis added.]¹⁸

40The decision in Arp involved similar fact evidence on the issue of identity, where a “striking similarity” akin to a “modus operandi” or “trademark” is required for the evidence to be admissible. That is a higher standard than is required in a case where the evidence is relevant to the actus reus of the offence, as is the situation before me. Nevertheless, the same general principles apply. The similarities in the evidence must be sufficient to rebut the explanation of coincidence to be probative.

41In Handy, the Supreme Court identified a non-exclusive list of factors to consider with respect to the cogency of the proffered similar fact evidence in relation to the inferences sought to be drawn:

i) proximity in time;

ii) degree of similarity to the other acts;

iii) number of occurrences;

iv) surrounding circumstances;

v) distinctive unifying circumstances;

vi) intervening acts;

vii) any other factor which would tend to support or rebut the underlying unity of the similar acts.

42Before finding similar fact evidence to be admissible, the trial judge must consider whether there was any opportunity for collusion. The presence of collusion “rebuts the premise on which admissibility depends”¹⁹ because the improbability of coincidence loses all force. Before similar fact evidence can be admitted, the trial judge must be satisfied on a balance of probabilities that the similar fact evidence was not tainted by collusion.²⁰ Actual, deliberate collusion is not necessarily required. In some circumstances, tainting of the evidence will suffice.

(iv) Application to this Case

43I will first deal with the factors listed in Handy in the context of this case. Before doing so, it is useful to consider the similarities in the three cases relied upon by the Crown, which are as follows.

(a) the complainants were similar in age;

(b) the offences occurred within a similar period of time;

(c) there was a similar level of familiarity between the complainants and Mr. Stronach in that they were not strangers, but neither were they close friends;

(d) in each case there was an initial gathering location and then a shift to his apartment/condo;

(e) there was a change in Mr. Stronach’s demeanour upon reaching the residence, without anything being said;

(f) each complainant left the apartment immediately after the assault.

44The first Handy factor is proximity in time, one of the similarities listed by the Crown. V.T. alleges an assault in 1977; A.S.’s allegations relate to 1983; and J.J. alleges she was assaulted somewhere between 1980 and 1983. That is a range of six years. That is not a particularly short period of time, but neither is it so lengthy as to lose any sense of cogency.

45The second factor dealt with in Handy is the degree of similarity between the incidents, as well as the dissimilarities. I will return to this point at the end.

46The third factor listed in Handy is the number of occurrences. Here, there are only three complainants. The more occurrences there are that are similar in nature, the greater the probative value of the evidence. Three is not a large number, but even similarities between two cases can permit the admissibility of similar fact evidence in some circumstances. Generally though, fewer occurrences will require a higher degree of similarity, sometimes even unique or distinctive characteristics.

47Fourth, Handy considers the surrounding circumstances. In each of these cases, Mr. Stronach is alleged to have known the complainants slightly: A.S. was a cocktail waitress who worked at the bar Mr. Stronach owned where she sometimes served him; V.T. was a regular customer at that same bar and would chat with Mr. Stronach there and on several occasions joined him for dinner; J.J. met Mr. Stronach briefly at that same bar, and he asked her out on a dinner date. In each case, Mr. Stronach had dinner with the complainant and afterwards took her to a private apartment or condo. Prior to arrival at the apartment, Mr. Stronach is described as being a gentleman, but upon arrival at the private residence it is alleged his demeanour changed and he initiated sexual contact without discussion.

48There were no particularly distinctive features unifying the three incidents and no intervening acts (the fifth and sixth of the Handy factors).

49I turn then to the similarities and dissimilarities between the three incidents. All three complainants were young (A.S. was 20-22; V.T. was 25; and J.J. was 25-27). Mr. Stronach was between 20 and 30 years their senior. His acquaintance with each of them was rooted in Rooney’s (A.S. as a waitress and the other two women as patrons). He invited each of them to have dinner with him, but at three different restaurants. He is then alleged to have taken them to his private residence (V.T. to an apartment near Rooney’s after having dinner at the restaurant within the Rooney’s complex; the other two women at his condo at the Harbourfront, after dinner at nearby restaurants).

50Although the Crown alleges a similarity in their departures from his residence immediately after the alleged assaults, I consider the departures to be very different. This is, at least in part, due to the very different nature of the alleged assaults themselves. V.T. alleged one surprising act of touching involving Mr. Stronach pushing her face first over the arm of an upholstered chair and grinding his pelvis into her vaginal area without removing any clothing. In response, she stood up, walked out, and got home on her own. A.S. described an incident of groping near the door after she had said she was leaving and Mr. Stronach was helping her on with her coat. She objected and Mr. Stronach immediately backed off, whereupon she left and Mr. Stronach’s chauffeur drove her home. J.J. alleged forced vaginal intercourse following which she was sobbing. She said Mr. Stronach drove her home in his own car, while she was sobbing all the way and, when they reached her apartment building, he asked if he could come in with her. All three women left the apartment in different ways and got home in different ways. I do not see this as evidence supporting the probative value of the evidence; the departures are different in virtually every way possible.

51There are no striking similarities in any of these narratives. It appears Mr. Stronach in those days (40 to 50 years ago) had a propensity to date women 20-30 years younger than him, although he was married with children. Unfortunately, that behaviour is not particularly distinctive. Based on these three instances, he seemed to have a pattern of taking a woman to dinner, then bringing her to his apartment, and then making a sexual move. Again, that is hardly distinctive. Indeed, it is a fairly generic pattern of behaviour in the dating world.

52The other considerable difficulty I have is that in the case of both V.T. and A.S., Mr. Stronach “made his move” but, upon being rebuffed, immediately backed off and permitted the complainants to simply leave. His alleged conduct with respect to J.J. was markedly different. I am left with significant dissimilarities with respect to the assaults themselves (which I acknowledge is not a bar), and similarities that are relatively generic.

53Finally, there is a serious risk of tainting with respect to J.J. who, before contacting the police, did extensive research online with respect to accusations of various women alleging they were assaulted by Mr. Stronach. These women did not include A.S. or V.T., but did include L.S. Therefore, for the purpose of the similar fact analysis, I must consider that information J.J. had about the role of Rooney’s and the Harbourfront condo, as well as the detail provided by L.S. about Mr. Stronach poking a hole in her pantyhose, may not be coincidental, but rather information shaped by her research.

54The dangers of reasoning and moral prejudice are vastly reduced in a judge alone trial, but are not non-existent. If the probative value of this evidence was high, it might well outweigh the potential for prejudice. However, I consider the probative value to be weak. The evidence of any similarities adds almost nothing to what transpired between Mr. Stronach and these three women. In my view, the probative value does not outweigh the prejudicial impact. Further, even if I admitted the evidence as similar fact evidence, I do not see how it would be helpful to me in deciding the issues in dispute. Accordingly, I have decided not to take the similarities into account in deciding this case.

D. ABUSE OF PROCESS

(i) Background and Introduction

55The trial before me started with seven complainants. All seven had been interviewed by the police shortly after they came forward with their complaints. Those statements were video and audio recorded and disclosed to the defence, as is appropriate and standard practice. The complainants were not cautioned about the importance of telling the truth or the possible consequences of not telling the truth, nor where they asked to swear an oath or make a solemn declaration to tell the truth.

56Prior to the scheduled trial date (also in accordance with standard procedure), the Crown attorneys, in the presence of at least one police officer, interviewed each complainant for the purposes of preparing them for trial. Those interviews were not recorded. The purpose of the police officer being present is to keep a record of what was said. Later, if any dispute arises about what was said, the officer can then testify as a witness, which avoids the problem of the Crown attorney having to be a witness and counsel in the same trial, which would be a conflict of interest.

57At these preparation meetings, every complainant provided additional or different information about the charges. Although there was no recording of the interview itself, the police did re-interview each complainant on video about the new information. Those videotapes and the officers’ notes were provided to the defence in accordance with the Crown’s duty of ongoing disclosure.

58The late disclosure of this substantial new material resulted in an adjournment of the trial date. It also became part of the subject matter of the defence motion for a stay of proceedings based on breach of s. 7 of the Charter, abuse of process, and lost evidence. In summary, the abuse of process motion related to the failure of the police to properly interview the complainants in the first instance, their failure to conduct an adequate investigation into the truth and reliability of the allegations made, and the manner in which the trial preparation meetings were conducted and recorded.

59I adjourned the abuse of process motion to be heard at the end of the trial so the impact of any Charter breach could be considered in light of the evidence at trial. By the time we reached the end of the trial, there were only four complainants remaining.

(ii) The Issues Remaining at the End of the Trial

60Initially, the defence sought a stay of proceedings as the appropriate remedy for the alleged abuse of process. The original defence factum alleged problems with charges involving six of the seven complainants (the only exception being V.T.). The Crown withdrew the charges against N.J., B.T. and V.D. and I have acquitted Mr. Stronach of the charges involving L.S. and J.J. Therefore, no remedy is required with respect to charges involving those five complainants.

61At the end of the trial, Ms. Shemesh advised that she would not be seeking a stay of proceedings as she recognized the high standard for such a remedy could not be met in this case. However, she submitted that I should take the same issues (the manner and adequacy of the interviews, investigation, and trial preparation) into account in assessing whether the Crown had proven their case beyond a reasonable doubt with respect to the remaining charges. The Crown does not concede any Charter breach or failure to disclose, but argues that even if there had been, there was no prejudice to the trial process. I note as well that it is always the case that the absence of evidence can give rise to a reasonable doubt, regardless of whether the absence of evidence is related to the conduct of the police or Crown.

62Thus, the remaining issues from the abuse of process application relate only to A.S. and V.T. and the question is whether there was anything improper or negligent done by the Crown or police that should be taken into account in determining the credibility and reliability of these two complainants.

(iii) Conclusions

63Although not referred to in the written factum, defence counsel did include V.T. in her argument on the abuse of process motion. It does not appear that there was any issue with the failure to record the preparation meeting with the Crown. The defence argued that the police should have investigated whether there was an apartment available to Mr. Stronach on Balliol St. I have dealt with this issue in my reasons relating to the V.T. charges below.

64With respect to A.S., again my conclusion is that the absence of a video of her entire preparation meeting with the Crown and police has no impact on the fair trial rights of the accused. The defence had a full opportunity to cross-examine A.S. on new information she revealed, most notably her reference to the groping incident while Mr. Stronach was helping her put on her coat and whether she had discussed this incident with her boyfriend. I have dealt with this evidence in the section of these reasons dealing with the charges involving A.S.

65In these circumstances, it is not necessary for me to rule on whether there was an obligation on the Crown/police to ensure a better recording of exactly what was said at the preparation meeting prior to trial, and I decline to do so.

66I do wish to comment on the policy of the Peel Regional Police to “believe the victim” in a sexual assault complaint and to not follow the usual formalities in taking a statement. I applaud police forces for creating more hospitable environments, more informed officers, and more sensitive interview techniques when dealing with individuals reporting that they have been victims of sexual assault. Vulnerable witnesses are entitled to that kind of consideration. However, I have no understanding of why such witnesses would not be advised of the importance of telling the truth. The caution and oath or solemn affirmation bring to the attention of the witness that this is a formal occasion with considerable consequences and care should be taken to speak the truth. Also, if for some reason, the witness is unavailable to testify at trial, a sworn and/or cautioned police statement would be better able to meet the requirements of admissibility under the principled exception to the hearsay rule.²¹

67The defence called the Officer in Charge of this case as a defence witness. At the time this offence was reported to Peel Regional Police, he was a member of the Special Victims Unit there. He testified that it was the practice of the SVU not to caution or take sworn statements from complainants in sexual assault cases, and that officers were instructed to follow that policy. I note that this practice appeared to extend to other witnesses interviewed by the police as well (e.g. J.J.’s friend and colleague C). He was aware of only one exception to that rule, which is for women who report intimate partner violence because, he said, there is a tendency for such witnesses to recant and a sworn statement would therefore be useful. Also, if the police have some reason to believe the witness may be lying, they will be cautioned and sworn.

68I am not suggesting for a moment that police should be skeptical about the veracity of sexual assault complainants generally, any more than they are about other people who report other crimes. In another sexual assault case approximately a decade ago, I wrote:

Although the slogan “Believe the victim” has become popularized of late, it has no place in a criminal trial. To approach a trial with the assumption that the complainant is telling the truth is the equivalent of imposing a presumption of guilt on the person accused of sexual assault and then placing a burden on him to prove his innocence. That is antithetical to the fundamental principles of justice enshrined in our constitution and the values underlying our free and democratic society.²²

69In my view, this also applies to the conduct of the investigation itself. A person accused of sexual assault is entitled to the same rights as a person accused of any other crime. This includes, in my view, an unbiased and fair investigation of the charges with a view to testing the truth of the allegations. I query whether an accused without the financial resources available to Mr. Stronach would have been able to mount a defence to these charges as effectively as he was able to do through the employment of private detectives. In the circumstances of the case before me, I do not see how the result would be any different if either V.T. or A.S. had been cautioned or sworn in before giving their statements. I will therefore not take this issue any further except to say I would hope there would be a thoughtful analysis and internal review of these policies.

E. CHARGES RELATING TO L.S. (COUNTS 1 AND 2)

(i) The Central Allegations

70L.S. testified that in the spring/summer of 1980, when she was 20 years old, she was working as a horse groom in the stables at Woodbine Racetrack. Some of the horses stabled there belonged to Mr. Stronach and she worked with them, including grooming and mucking out stalls. In the course of that job, she occasionally met Mr. Stronach when he came to talk to the trainers or the veterinarian.

71According to L.S., in July 1980 (or perhaps July 1981), she moved from her employment at Woodbine to being employed directly at the “home barn” for Mr. Stronach’s horse racing business, Beechwood Farms, which was near Aurora.

72L.S.’s birthday is on July 19. She would have turned 21 in 1980. She said when she was working at the home barn, two other female grooms worked there, one whose name was Lydia, and the other named either Bev or Barb. L.S. testified that as her birthday was approaching, she had mentioned this to the other two female grooms and they suggested going to Rooney’s to celebrate. They told her they could get a staff discount because the bar was owned by Mr. Stronach. She recalled that they were going to go on a Thursday, and that she was not scheduled to work the next day. She said she left work at about 5:00 p.m. and drove home to Mississauga to change. She was driving a car she had borrowed from a friend. She drove to the bar alone and parked nearby. She believed she arrived at about 7:00 p.m.

73She said she was wearing a mid-calf length grey wool dress with three-quarter length sleeves, white cotton underwear that came to her waist, grey pantyhose over the underwear, and grey suede pumps with two-inch heels. At one point, she acknowledged that she might have been wearing a second pair of underwear under the pantyhose.

74L.S. testified that the bar was nearly empty when she arrived, and that she spotted her co-workers at a booth, each with a “tropical drink” in front of them. She went to their table and sat opposite Lydia. She described (in various ways) the arrival of Mr. Stronach at their table with champagne. It is unclear from her evidence how much, if any, champagne she drank.

75L.S. testified that Mr. Stronach asked her to dance. She does not have a clear memory of most of this, but stated that she remembers that while dancing, Mr. Stronach hiked up her dress, poked a hole in her pantyhose with his fingers, and digitally penetrated her vagina. She said she pushed him away and croaked out something, but was not sure what she said. She explained that she had vocal paralysis at the time, having injured her vocal cords while doing John Wayne impressions. She testified that Mr. Stronach then took her to a booth where he further molested her in the presence of others, including further digital penetration.

76L.S. testified that her next memory is waking up in a bed. It was dark, but the sun was just rising. She said there was a large mirror over the bed and she could see herself in it. She was naked and Mr. Stronach was on top of her, having sex with her. She said she knew in that moment that she was being raped. She testified that she knew she would not have consented because Mr. Stronach was “old” (he was 58 in 1980), married, and her boss. She said she told him she needed to go to the bathroom, which she then did. She gathered up her clothes and got dressed and Mr. Stronach then drove her back to where her car was parked. By then, it was morning. She described the apartment in which she found herself as being on a high floor (estimating between the third and sixth floor) overlooking the Toronto harbour. She has no memory whatsoever of anything that happened between being assaulted at Rooney’s and waking up in the bed while being raped.

77L.S. testified that Mr. Stronach acted as though nothing unusual had happened between them and she was too terrified to say anything. After she retrieved her car, she drove a short distance and then pulled over “to let myself shake and yell, and scream”.²³ She then went home. Later that day, she said Mr. Stronach called her home and her mother answered. She told her mother she did not want to speak to him. She said she never went back to Beechwood Farms again and never spoke to anyone there. She had left behind a pair of expensive riding boots, but never returned to get them.

78L.S. contacted the Toronto Police Service in 2015 and reported that she had been raped by Mr. Stronach. She testified that she did not go to the police at the time because she was afraid she would not be believed. However, she was later motivated to come forward by the “Me Too” movement and the media coverage of charges against Bill Cosby and Canadian broadcaster Jian Ghomeshi. The Toronto police took a video-recorded statement from L.S. but did not proceed with charges.

79In 2024, Peel Regional Police contacted L.S. in the course of an investigation of another complaint about Mr. Stronach. They decided to file charges.

80L.S. subsequently gave interviews to CBC’s The Fifth Estate, CTV, and The Toronto Star. She also posted some things about Mr. Stronach on her various social media accounts.

81Almost every aspect of L.S.’s allegations has been undermined by other evidence, sometimes by her own evidence. I believe her evidence that she worked at the stables at Woodbine in and around this time. Otherwise, she has proven to be a wholly unreliable witness.

(ii) The Date of the Alleged Incident

82In L.S.’s original report to the Toronto police in 2015, she said that this assault occurred shortly before her 21^st birthday. The first officer to interview her was P.C. Matthew Proulx, who interviewed her at her home on August 20, 2015. He was called as a defence witness. His notes clearly state that she said it happened in the night, on either Thursday, July 17 or Friday, July 18, 1980. In cross-examination at trial, L.S. maintained that she had no recollection of an officer coming to her home in 2015 and taking a statement. However, it is clear that this did happen and that 1980 is the year she provided.

83Her next statement was a formal statement to the Toronto police on October 1, 2015, which was under a solemn affirmation to tell the truth and audio/video recorded. Again, she reported to the police that she went to Rooney’s on a Thursday, just before her 21^st birthday (which was on Saturday, July 19, 1980). Although both she and the interviewing officer mentioned it being 1981 a couple of times, and there was some confusion back and forth, L.S. consistently tied this event to her 21^st birthday, which was in July 1980. I do not agree with the submission of the Crown that L.S. had always been uncertain about whether this incident happened in 1980 or 1981. Although L.S. asserted that this was the case in her evidence at trial, that is not borne out by the evidence. Nor do I accept that somebody’s 21^st birthday is not a milestone for Canadians, particularly in 1980. Indeed, 21 was the age of majority up until 1971.

84In 2024, L.S. gave an interview to Wendy Gillis, a journalist with the Toronto Star. Ms. Gillis audio recorded their discussion to be sure of accuracy, and also did a follow-up interview to verify those facts before publishing her article in the newspaper. L.S. told Ms. Gillis that she went to Rooney’s with two “girls” who worked at the stable on Thursday July 17, 1980, two days before her 21^st birthday.

85Also in 2024, L.S. was interviewed by CBC journalist, Mark Kelley, for the program “The Fifth Estate.” She stated in that interview that she went to Rooney’s at the suggestion of two other grooms at the stable to celebrate her 21^st birthday.

86On March 26, 2025, L.S. was interviewed by D.C. DiNardo of the Peel Regional Police in preparation for the upcoming preliminary hearing. L.S. told the officer that she wanted to clear up the confusion about 1980 and 1981 that appeared in the 2015 formal statement to police. She told the officer she was clear that this happened in 1980, not 1981. L.S. remembered that it was the same year that Mr. Stronach’s prize racehorse, Glorious Song, had a significant win at the Santa Anita racetrack in California. By this point, she was tying the event to 1980 not only based on it being her 21^st birthday, but also on the date when Glorious Song had won specific races.

87When examined in chief by the Crown at the preliminary hearing on April 14, 2025, L.S. testified that the incident giving rise to these charges started at Rooney’s on July 17, 1980, which was two days before her 21^st birthday. In cross-examination, defence counsel suggested to her that for those dates in July 1980, Mr. Stronach was in Kentucky at a horse auction and that there is proof available to establish that alibi.

88On January 20, 2026, L.S. attended a meeting with police to prepare for this trial. She came with some hand-written notes (which she described as a “brain dump”) and a job recommendation from a hospital relating to former employment, which had commenced in October 1981 and ended on March 29, 1982. L.S. explained that this letter allowed her to “unknot” the tangled chain of her memories and she now realized that her encounter with Mr. Stronach was in July 1981, not 1980 as she had previously believed. She based this change in date on the fact that she now recalled that on the day after the assault, she received flowers for her birthday from Dale Grant, who she described as her fiancée. She said that she remembered the hospital staff having a surprise bridal shower for her when she finished working there in the spring of 1982. However, she also acknowledged that she was not officially engaged to be married to Dale Grant, although she said they had discussed marriage.

89At the trial before me, L.S. reiterated that she had been mistaken about the 1980 date and maintained that she had never been completely sure as between 1980 and 1981. However, based on the dates she worked at the hospital and the flowers she said she received from Dale Grant, she now believed it had been just days before her birthday in July 1981. She said she was 90% sure that it was in 1981.

90As stated above, I do not believe L.S.’s evidence that she was never sure about whether this happened close to her 21^st birthday in 1980, as opposed to her 22^nd birthday in 1981. None of her prior statements support that thesis. Further, the evidence upon which she now says it was 1981 does not hold up to scrutiny.

91Dale Grant was called as a defence witness at trial. He now lives in Utah. He testified that he is a Mormon and was doing missionary work north of Toronto between 1980 and 1982. He finished up this missionary work in April 1982 and returned to his home in Utah. He said he was in Toronto for the last five months of his mission, which was when he met L.S., who was also a Mormon at the time. Mr. Grant met L.S. five or six times at various church activities in the area. He never went on a date with her, was never alone with her, certainly was never engaged to be married to her, and she never said anything to him about believing that to be the case. He confirmed that he had not been in Toronto in July 1980 or 1981. He had no recollection of ever sending her flowers.

92Counts 1 and 2 on the indictment are particularized to include the dates between July 1, 1980 and July 31, 1981. Typically, the precise date upon which the assault occurred would not be an essential element of the offences charged relating to L.S. (indecent assault on the dancefloor at Rooney’s and rape at the condo). However, what troubles me is the assurance with which L.S. pushed the narrative of an assault that occurred two days before her 21^st birthday. She repeated that scenario over and over again. She then backed it up again by tying the narrative to the date when Glorious Song won a big race in California. The only time there was any question of it being in 1981 was during some confusion about the year during her second 2015 statement. However, it was always on the Thursday before her 21^st birthday, regardless of whether that was 1980 or 1981.

93It was only after being confronted with Mr. Stronach’s alibi for the 1980 dates that L.S. came up with the scenario for 1981. Again, she anchored the story to points in time which convinced her this version was right: the bridal shower at the end of her work at the hospital in the spring of 1982 and the flowers from her fiancée in July 1981. She could not have known that the defence would track down the supposed fiancée from 45 years ago and expose the complete untruth of this new scenario.

94Assuming for the moment that the incidents described in Counts 1 and 2 did happen, they did not occur in July 1980. I am persuaded on the evidence before me that Mr. Stronach was out of the country in July 1980 when L.S. said these offences occurred. There is also enough evidence to raise a reasonable doubt about whether he was out of the country in July 1981 as well. To muddy the waters still further, in 2019 L.S. posted on social media that she had been raped by Mr. Stronach in 1982. This was just four years after two statements to the police in which she said that this had happened in 1980. In cross-examination, she conceded that this was impossible because she was in Utah during the summer of 1982. She said she was “extremely angry” at the time she posted this and was not being careful about the date, stating, “I didn’t know what year it had happened. It had happened 30-plus years before. And I wasn’t looking back over the records to see anything. I was just putting it in, putting it in a place.”²⁴

95Again, I accept that the precise date may not be an essential element of these offences. However, L.S. told a compelling story about it being on July 17, 1980, and I think she may well have believed it herself. Then she told an equally compelling story about July 1981, which is also wrong, and which she also seemed to believe (although this time only to the degree of 90%). The underlying problem is that this witness, for whatever reason, is wholly unreliable about when these offences occurred, notwithstanding detailed narratives about why it was 1980 and later why it was 1981.

(iii) Employment at Beechwood Farms

96L.S. testified that she moved from being a groom at Woodbine Racetrack to the stables at Beechwood Farms after a discussion with Mr. Stronach about being unhappy with the hours she had to work at the racetrack. L.S. told this story about working at Beechwood consistently multiple times: in her police interviews; in her various press interviews; in her testimony at the preliminary hearing; and throughout her testimony at trial (although in her evidence at trial, she moved the date to 1981 instead of 1980). The position of the defence is that L.S. never worked at Beechwood Farms.

97L.S. was only able to provide a few details about what Beechwood was like, which is perhaps understandable given that she was only there for two or three weeks and it was 45 years ago. However, the details she did provide were either generic, available publicly, or likely wrong.

98L.S. testified that there were two other women who worked at Beechwood when she was there. She was clear that one of the women was named Lydia and initially said the other woman was named Barb, later saying she thought it was Barb or Bev. She said those were the two women who suggested they all go to Rooney’s to celebrate her birthday. She testified that she watched the Fifth Estate program which featured her allegations against Mr. Stronach and which also had an interview with an employee of Beechwood Farms, Beverley Buck. L.S. identified her as one of the women from the farm who had been at Rooney’s the night of her encounter with Mr. Stronach. L.S. also recalled that the manager of Beechwood was named “Pat” and that he lived in an apartment over the barn. She said she was paid in cash, which was given to her every second week in an envelope. She also said she was responsible for looking after two horses, one of which was named Lindy and which she later described in her evidence as being a brood mare. L.S. said that the other horse she cared for while at Beechwood was a famous horse named Glorious Song. She described grooming and riding that horse and talked about this being the first time she had ridden with a racing saddle.

99L.S. was able to describe the general physical layout of the barn fairly accurately. However, information about the physical layout of the barn and some of its features were easily found in media articles as it was said to be state of the art at the time. This is also information L.S. could have obtained from others in the horse racing business, including during her work at Woodbine Racetrack. This does not mean that she obtained her general information that way. However, it does not add much to her testimony by way of corroboration. It does not mean she was ever actually there.

100All her other details would appear to be wrong. The defence called two witnesses who worked at Beechwood Farms during the early 1980s – Beverley Buck and Kenneth DenOuden. I found both witnesses to be knowledgeable and reliable in their evidence. Although not identical in every respect, they were largely corroborative of each other. They had detailed information of how the stables were run and who worked there. I recognize they have some loyalty to Mr. Stronach, particularly Ms. Buck who returned to work for Mr. Stronach in 2015 after running her own business for many years in between, and is still employed there. However, I found them both to be honest witnesses.

101Beverley Buck was a groom in the very barn where L.S. claimed she worked and is one of the two women L.S. says she went to Rooney’s with. She worked there from January 1979 and was there for eight years before starting her own business. Ms. Buck denied ever meeting L.S. and had never heard of her before these allegations. She did not recognize photographs of L.S. taken close in time to these events while L.S. was employed at the Woodbine Racetrack. Ms. Buck testified that there was only one other woman working at the barn in 1980 and 1981. Her name was Lou (short for Louise) Astratoni and her spouse (Al Blattler) worked there as well. They lived in an apartment above the stud barn. Later in her tenure, there were other women who worked in the home barn, and whom she listed in her evidence. None of them were named Lydia. Ms. Buck denied that the manager was named Pat, and said there was no employee in the barn named Pat. She said the manager at the time was Paul Johnson, and after that Ken DenOuden, followed by Joe Riddell. At one point in her evidence, she also mentioned the possibility of Rod McLean being a manager. However, she was clear that throughout her time there, there was nobody named Pat. There were two apartments at the barns. She testified that an employee named Marty Gibson lived in one of them, but could not remember the name of the man who lived in the other one.

102Ms. Buck denied ever going to Rooney’s with L.S. She testified that she had only been to Rooney’s on one occasion, when Mr. Stronach rented a bus and took the entire staff there for a party near Christmas.

103Ken DenOuden testified that he was employed by Mr. Stronach as the farm manager and head trainer at Beechwood Farms from the third week of May 1981 until June 1985. He said there were 18 to 20 people employed there at a time and that, when he started, he made it a point to work in every barn to get to know all staff members. Mr. DenOuden did all the hiring of staff for the barns. He denied that L.S. ever worked at Beechwood Farms while he was there. He did not recognize L.S. from the photographs taken of her at Woodbine, in either 1980 or 1981.

104Mr. DenOuden recalled that Beverley Buck worked at one of the barns, and also Lou (who he said was Al Blackler’s wife or girlfriend). He also mentioned a woman named Kathy, which is also a name provided by Ms. Buck as someone who was there later in her tenure. He said there was never anyone named Lydia, nor was there a male employee named Pat. He provided the names of employees who lived at apartments or houses on site. There was no Pat living there. He did recall an employee at the racetrack named Pat, who worked for one of the trainers, but he could not recall him ever working at Beechwood Farms.

105Ms. Buck testified that she was paid by cheque, as were all the barn staff, until they later switched over to direct deposit. She denied that anyone who worked there was ever paid in cash. Mr. DenOuden confirmed that. He said that an administrative person named Jean Vickers would prepare the cheques and they would then be signed by Mrs. Stronach and distributed to the employees.

106According to the evidence of Ms. Buck, Lindy was a brood mare and would have been kept in a barn that was specifically for that purpose, not in the barn with the racehorses and yearlings. It is clear from the evidence of both Mr. DenOuden and Ms. Buck that L.S. did not ride Glorious Song during the two or three weeks she claimed to have worked at Beechwood Farms, or ever. This was an exceptional and very expensive horse. According to Ms. Buck, in the early 80’s, Mr. Stronach sold a one-half interest in Glorious Song for $1 million. She testified that a new worker at the barn would not be permitted to work with Glorious Song, and most certainly would not be trusted to ride her. Ms. Buck described herself as an experienced horsewoman. She described how, after being at Beechwood for eight years, she was permitted to ride Glorious Song briefly in the arena as a special reward, and was told at the time, “This is for you so that you can say you were on her.” Ms. Buck also testified that she did not believe Glorious Song was even stabled at Beechwood during the summer of 1980 or 1981 as she was well into her racing career at that time and would have been stabled at the racetracks. She said her groom at that time was a woman named Jill and that she travelled everywhere with Glorious Song. She identified numerous photographs of Glorious Song with various people after races, including Mr. Stronach and the groom named Jill. One photograph was dated July 1980 and another was from July 1981. Mr. DenOuden also testified that by the time he started in May 1981, Glorious Song was no longer at the home barn and she was away at racetracks.

107There is overwhelming evidence that L.S. never worked with and never rode Glorious Song at Beechwood Farms. And yet, she had vivid memories of grooming her and riding her there. She testified at trial in her evidence-in-chief as follows:

Q. And in what ways were you taking care of Glorious Song?

A. Grooming and mucking out stalls, and I exercised her one time with the other grooms up there.

It was a frightening experience because I’d never been in a racing saddle before and I was on a well-known horse and that was – I was scared of hurting anything on her. So…

Q. What do you mean by exercising her? How did you exercise her?

A. Oh, they take them out to a small track out back of the barn, and I do not recall galloping her. I just recall, you know, just walking, maybe trotting. But as I said, I was very unsure and very unsteady in, in that particular type of saddle.²⁵

108This detail about riding Glorious Song is something L.S. provided to the police in 2015, and again to the CBC Fifth Estate program in 2024, and again in her testimony before me. However, this is pure fantasy. Glorious Song was not even at the home barn when L.S. purports to have worked there, whether that was 1980 or 1981. Even if the horse was there, L.S. certainly never would have been permitted to ride her. L.S. would never have been assigned as the groom for Lindy and Glorious Song. Lindy was in a different barn from the racehorses. Even if Glorious Song had been at Beechwood at the time, it would not have been in the same barn as Lindy and a rookie groom with days of experience there would never have been assigned to look after her needs, much less trusted to ride her. Again, this is not an essential element of the offence, but it is a detail L.S. provided and seems to have believed, but which is demonstrably false. Ultimately, in cross-examination when it was put to L.S. that Glorious Song was not at the home barn in 1981 and that there are records of races that would show where she was, L.S. told defence counsel, “In, in my memory, it was Glorious Song…. I’m pretty sure I did [ride her], but if you are going to force the issue, I guess I’ll have to concede.”²⁶

109I doubt that L.S. deliberately fabricated this detail about working with and riding Glorious Song. I think that up until her cross-examination at trial, she believed it to be true. However, her memory of it is not rooted in reality. This is another example of L.S.’s purported memory of events, which included details like feeling unsteady in the different saddle, but which simply never happened. This is a further reason to be cautious about the reliability of her evidence generally.

(iv) Reliability of L.S.’s Evidence Generally

110Before turning to the two specific incidents of alleged assault, I will deal in a more general way with the reliability of L.S.’s evidence. Under the two preceding headings I have identified serious concerns about the reliability of two of the underpinnings of L.S.’s narrative – when the events happened and whether she was ever employed at Beechwood Farms. This kind of unreliability is pervasive throughout her testimony.

111In her evidence at trial, L.S. described the other two grooms suggesting that they go to Rooney’s for dinner to celebrate her birthday. She testified to “dressing up” in a dress and heels to go out for dinner. When asked in cross-examination whether dancing was “on her radar” she said that “they may have mentioned something about it, but [she] wouldn’t have wanted to go dancing in heels” (referring to the two-inch pumps she had earlier testified she was wearing).²⁷ The next day, in further cross-examination, L.S. was taken to the transcript of her police interview in 2015 when she said multiple times that they were going to Rooney’s for the purpose of dancing and that she was looking forward to dancing. In particular she was taken to excerpts from pages 6, 9, and 32 of that transcript²⁸ in which she told the police as follows:

L.S. at p. 6: The girls up at the barn found out it was my birthday and they said, oh, let’s let’s go out, let’s um – Mr. Stronach has a restaurant in Toronto called Rooney’s. Let’s go dancing. We were – I love dancing. Um, I’ve been a Mormon since, uh, for about a year, uh before. I was, um teetotal at the time. Um, uh, you know, and had very few vices really. You know, horses were my biggest vice, and I really wanted to go dancing. Hadn’t been out in a while. And so we went down there, um, got all dressed up.

It wasn’t something that I wasn’t going out looking to drink or get drunk. I was just going out to dance.

Officer at p. 32: Is there anything else that you can think of that would be pertinent or that we would need to know?

L.S.: I guess just that um, you know, I mean, not that you need to know that, you know, a woman going out to a place to dance, you know, just because you’re rich and, you know, powerful, but you can’t take what you want, you just can’t.

112It does not matter if she was going dancing or going out for dinner. What matters is the shifting narrative and how wedded L.S. is to the accuracy of her current memory. When confronted in cross-examination about her statements in 2015 that the purpose of going to Rooney’s was to go dancing, she became quite combative with defence counsel, accusing her of putting words in her mouth, when in fact what was being put to L.S. were her own words from her statement to the police in 2015.

113Another example is L.S.’s description at trial of Mr. Stronach arriving at their table at Rooney’s with a bottle of champagne in one hand and popping out from behind a wall to surprise them. What she demonstrated at that point was Mr. Stronach with both arms expended in a “Ta Da” type motion (her words, not mine).²⁹ This is in contrast to her earlier statement to police in which she said that after she was seated with her two friends at their table, Mr. Stronach joined them and ordered a bottle of champagne. Again, the essence of the matter is that Mr. Stronach was there and provided champagne. The difficulty I have with it is the very visual presentation of Mr. Stronach popping out from behind a screen with a surprise bottle of champagne, which is her more recent memory, as contrasted with him joining the table and ordering a bottle of champagne for them all, which was her initial recounting of the event. It seems to me that her more recent visual memory is an overlay or visualization of what she thinks might have happened, but which she now believes is an actual memory of something she can see and replay in her mind. It sounds very real when she describes it as a dramatic visual in this way, but it may not have happened in that manner at all. Her actual memory of how it happened is therefore not reliable, assuming she was ever at Rooney’s.

114This kind of specific visual memory is particularly concerning when it turns out to be inaccurate. Another example is her vivid memory of riding Glorious Song while being worried about harming her and feeling unstable using a kind of saddle she had never used before. I am sure she did not ride Glorious Song. Therefore, the level of detail she provided associated with this memory is alarming. This is an issue I will return to when dealing with the rape charge in Count 2.

115In their written submissions at the end of the trial, the Crown described L.S as a “candid and thoughtful witness.” I cannot agree with that characterization. L.S. was neither candid nor thoughtful. Her evidence is riddled with inconsistencies, both trivial and important. Her evidence with respect to the statement she provided to D.C. Proulx in 2015 illustrates this point.

116L.S. first reported this alleged assault to the police in 2015. Officer Proulx was assigned to take an initial statement and he went to L.S.’s home for that purpose. He took detailed notes in his notebook and testified that where he put quotation marks around something, this was a verbatim quote of what the complainant said, whereas other entries were an approximation. According to Officer Proulx’s notes, L.S. told him that while on the dance floor Mr. Stronach “groped and felt [her] up” under her clothing and panties, that she was “very drunk,” and that she did not recall if she protested or not. L.S. maintained that she had no recollection whatsoever of ever speaking to Officer Proulx and no memory of an officer even coming to her home and speaking to her about it. She remembered calling the police to report the assault (which was in the afternoon on August 20, 2015) and giving a formal statement to the police on October 1, 2015, but could not recall any officer visiting her and taking a statement on the night of August 20, 2015, even though Officer Proulx interviewed L.S. for just over an hour that night.

117It is unusual that L.S. would have no memory whatsoever of that interview with Officer Proulx, given that this was the very first time she had ever reported her allegations about Mr. Stronach to a police officer. Moreover, her evidence was not only that she could not remember what she said to Officer Proulx, but that she had no memory whatsoever of meeting with him at all. Notwithstanding her prior evidence about having no memory of speaking to Officer Proulx, when cross-examined about statements the officer recorded in his notes, L.S. took a combative position that can in no way be described as “candid” or “thoughtful.” When asked about the words “very drunk” in Officer Proulx’s notes, L.S. immediately responded, “I told him I felt very drunk.” He wrote “very drunk.” When taken to the notes referring to the dance floor incident that indicated she said she did not “recall protesting or not,” L.S. immediately interjected, “This man didn’t write down what I was saying. He was just taking notes.” Given that L.S. had no memory whatsoever of talking to Officer Proulx, much less the particulars of any statement she gave, her responses as to what she said, as compared to what he wrote down, were the very opposite of “candid” or “thoughtful.”

118L.S. might well have told Officer Proulx she “felt very drunk” as opposed to saying she “was very drunk.” However, under cross-examination she purported to remember precisely what she said to the officer, notwithstanding her earlier testimony that she could not even remember that the interview happened. I also understand that standing up to skilled cross-examination about an event that occurred decades ago is not an easy task. It is not my intent to nit-pick about every inconsistency or memory lapse. However, if I felt L.S. had been thoughtful or careful in her responses, that would give me considerably more comfort in relying on the snatches of memory she has described. There are enormous gaps in L.S.’s memory with respect to the events themselves. The fact that she was neither careful nor thoughtful in her responses to questions makes it all the more difficult to assess the credibility and reliability of her testimony at trial. It is difficult to determine whether a detailed account of something is an event that has stuck out and which she actually remembers, as opposed to some detail she has filled in later out of her imagination. I find myself having no idea what is a real memory for her and what is not.

(v) The Alleged Sexual Assault at Rooney’s

119L.S. seems to have consistently reported that she had nothing to eat at Rooney’s. She has given varying reports with respect to what she may have had to drink there. Those reports range from being (or at least feeling) “very drunk” (in her September 2015 statement to Officer Proulx) to having had nothing at all to drink (in her October 2015 interview). At trial, she said she could remember telling Mr. Stronach that she did not drink and also remembered him pouring the champagne into flutes anyway. In another part of her evidence, she said she could not remember how the champagne came to be in the flutes. However, in her second interview with Ms. Gillis for the Toronto Star article, Ms. Gillis told L.S. that she would be quoting her in her article as saying, “I told him I didn’t drink, but he opened it anyway and poured champagne and they kept toasting” and also, “I had no choice but to drink the champagne, even though I can’t handle alcohol.” At that time, L.S. made no objection to this language being attributed to her in an article to be published in the Toronto Star. However, under cross-examination at trial, she sought to distance herself from it maintaining she didn’t understand the purpose of Ms. Gillis saying that and that she no longer had a memory of it. In her interview with the Fifth Estate, L.S. stated, “I know he [Mr. Stronach] was refilling glasses.” When cross-examined on this excerpt at trial, L.S. said she had no memory of that and did not know why she said it. Initially at trial she said she had no memory of drinking any champagne, but later (still in her examination-in-chief) said that she “probably did” have some champagne because she has a recollection of distaste and that the champagne tasted like vinegar. In her CBC Fifth Estate interview, Ms. Gillis referred L.S. to the information she had provided about not being able to walk and not knowing how she got from one place to another. She asked her if it was because she was “blackout drunk” and L.S. replied “Oh yeah.” L.S. then added that she did not have the adverse effects she typically had in the past when drinking alcohol. In her previous evidence under cross-examination about her interview with Officer Proulx, L.S. stated:

. . . I don’t know what questions he was asking, but, I mean, he kept saying I said I was drunk. I never said I was drunk. I said I felt drunk. Because I, I know that I didn’t have a hangover the next day. So I’ve always known that I didn’t – I wasn’t drunk. I didn’t get drunk. I had a – I don’t know what happened to me.³⁰

120For whatever reason, and we will never know for sure, L.S. has no memory of anything that happened at the table after the champagne arrived. Her next reported memory is when she was on the dance floor with Mr. Stronach’s fingers penetrating her vagina. For the most part, she denied having had much to drink, claiming that she has a bad reaction to alcohol because it makes her physically sick and gives her a massive hangover. However, she has no recollection of feeling ill that night, nor did she feel ill the next morning. Although when interviewed for the Fifth Estate program, she obliquely referenced the possibility of having been drugged with a horse tranquilizer, she immediately acknowledged this was just speculation on her part. There does not appear to be any way she could have ingested something if, as she maintains, she did not drink champagne or anything else, and did not eat anything. There is no explanation for the complete absence of any memory prior to “coming to” on the dance floor while being digitally penetrated. I accept that a lot of time has passed since this event, and also that the brain’s ability to process and retain things can often be impaired during a traumatic event. However, with L.S. mostly being adamant about not drinking very much, such a large gap in memory prior to the traumatic event is puzzling.

121L.S. testified in chief that she suddenly “came to” on the dance floor as she was being digitally penetrated and that she was in pain. She said Mr. Stronach was holding her “very, very closely” and that she was struggling. She said her body felt “numb”, and that she felt “discombobulated” and “unable to get away.” Her head was “very woozy” and she “had no control over [her] legs at all.”³¹ She was unable to walk. L.S. described Mr. Stronach as standing right in front of her at a distance of about one inch and holding her very tightly with one hand wrapped around her.

122While doing this he was hiking her mid-calf length dress up to her waist and penetrating her vagina with the fingers of his other hand. She said she was wearing pantyhose with a pair of underwear over the top of the pantyhose. She described the style of underwear as “granny panties” and said they were “large, white, high waisted” and with a regular cut across the thigh.³² She also testified later in her evidence that she often wore two pairs of underwear, one under the pantyhose and another pair over the pantyhose, and she could not say whether she was wearing two pairs that night. Notwithstanding this, she said Mr. Stronach was able to push aside her underwear and tear a hole in her pantyhose and then insert his fingers into her vagina, while also standing on a dance floor and holding her up with one arm because she was incapable of standing on her own.

123In cross-examination, a portion of the video of L.S.’s interview with the Fifth Estate was played for her. In that excerpt, she was explaining how Mr. Stronach was holding her on the dance floor by visually demonstrating her arms crossing each other, bent at the elbow and in front of her body with the palms facing her own chest. She said Mr. Stronach was holding her “really, really tight.” At trial, she said that her arms were not crossed. In cross-examination, L.S. attempted to explain this discrepancy by saying that she had been hit in the head by a CBC camera, that she felt “trapped” while being interviewed, and believed she had been “manipulated” into doing the interview. I have watched the footage of the entire CBC interview. L.S. does not look remotely reluctant to speak, nor was she reluctant to speak to the Toronto Star reporter not long before. Indeed, that interview was her civil lawyer’s idea and he was the one who approached Ms. Gillis and proposed the interview. In any event, none of these excuses she provided explain why her story is now different. Nothing in particular turns on whether her arms were crossed in front of her as opposed to by her sides, but her bizarre explanation for the difference is troubling.

124L.S. testified that she was struggling while Mr. Stronach was digitally penetrating her, and that she pushed him away and said “No.” She said that her voice was probably more like an inaudible croak because she had paralysis of her vocal cords that year (whichever year it was) as a result of doing John Wayne impersonations. She said that when she did this, Mr. Stronach immediately took her off the dance floor and shoved her into a booth. She described him sliding into the booth after her and continuing to molest her by pressing his hands into her crotch. This second incident in the booth was not a detail she had provided to the police in her two interviews in 2015. Also, in both her 2015 formal interview and her interview by Officer Proulx, L.S. did not say anything about pushing back on the dance floor or saying anything to Mr. Stronach, or for that matter being penetrated vaginally (she used the word “groped”). According to Officer Proulx, L.S. told him that she did not recall if she protested or not when on the dance floor.

125L.S. also gave inconsistent evidence about the other people present in the bar while this was happening. Initially, she testified that Rooney’s was very quiet and nearly empty when she was there. That is extremely unlikely. Other witnesses who were very familiar with that venue testified that it was a popular and busy spot, often with lineups out the door.

126In her examination-in-chief, L.S. volunteered that when Mr. Stronach shoved her into the booth, she recalled two people being there. She stated:

And Mr. Stronach slid in behind me, but kept molesting me, kept pressing his hands in my crotch. And, and it just – and I do recall two heads, but I don’t know if they were in the booth or if that they’re silhouettes in my – I don’t know if they were in that booth or if they were in the next booth, and it was the back of their heads. So I don’t know if they were facing me or not. And he kept talking, but I don’t know what he was saying. And I don’t know if he was talking to me or if he was talking to these other people or what.³³

127A short time later, still in chief, she testified about suddenly “coming to” on the dance floor and was asked what she was seeing in that moment. She answered:

I’m seeing four to five other couples dancing. I’m seeing, I believe, the bar. It seems to be up above a bit. I, I don’t know for sure, and somebody’s standing behind the bar. That’s – everything’s in silhouette, in shadow.³⁴

128Mere minutes after that, when asked what was going through her mind as Mr. Stronach was shoving her into the booth, she answered:

Fear. Plain fear. I, I, I was – this was actually when I saw the other people that were on the dance floor. I don’t think I saw them while on the dance floor. I was facing away. When slid into the booth, that, that’s when I saw the other people in the bar

But I didn’t – I don’t think I saw them while I was on the dance floor. It’s all really hazy.³⁵

129Holding a semi-conscious woman upright on a dance floor is not a simple feat with two arms. It is nearly impossible with one arm. Doing so with one arm, while simultaneously hoisting up a skirt, pushing aside a pair (possibly two pairs) of underwear, tearing a hole through the crotch of the pantyhose, and digitally penetrating a woman’s vagina, defies credulity. L.S. reported that she was 5’7” at the time and weighed 130 pounds. This scenario simply seems impossible.

130Further, all of this was allegedly being done in a public place – on a dance floor in a very popular disco. In addition, it was allegedly being done by a well-known man, identifiable by many of the people present. This is highly unlikely to have occurred, at least not in the manner described.

(vi) Conclusions re The Alleged Assaults at Rooney’s

131Obviously, there are some inconsistencies in the various versions L.S. has given of the alleged sexual assaults at Rooney’s. This is somewhat understandable given the number of years that have passed. However, when the blackouts and inconsistencies are combined with the sheer improbability of what L.S. described, it becomes exceedingly difficult to discern what, if anything, actually happened. Not only that, the assault alleged on the dance floor strikes me as close to physically impossible. Added to this is the overall unreliability of L.S.’s evidence on almost everything she described. Her evidence is contradicted by the evidence of other credible and reliable witnesses and is also internally inconsistent. I cannot be sure that she ever worked at Beechwood Farms; I suspect she did not. I am sure that she never rode Glorious Song as she alleged. I am inclined to believe Beverley Buck that she never met L.S. and did not meet up with her at Rooney’s, whether in 1980 or 1981.

132Given the improbability that an assault could have occurred in the manner described by L.S., the absence of any memory about the surrounding circumstances is even more problematic. I cannot be satisfied that the described incident, or anything like it, ever occurred based on the limited and contradictory evidence before me. The evidence with respect to this charge does not even approach proof beyond a reasonable doubt. I therefore find Mr. Stronach not guilty of indecent assault as charged in Count 2.

(vii) Conclusions re The Alleged Rape at the Harbourfront Condo

133Count 1 alleges the offence of rape, as it existed in the Criminal Code prior to 1983.³⁶ L.S. testified that after being shoved into the booth and molested at Rooney’s, the next thing she remembers is waking up on her back in a bed, naked, and seeing her face in a mirror on the ceiling. She said that she could also see Mr. Stronach on top of her, also naked, and that he was having vaginal intercourse with her. She has no memory of anything that happened between being in the booth at Rooney’s and being in the bed below the mirrored ceiling.

134Since L.S. has no memory of anything leading up to her lying in a bed in the middle of sexual intercourse, she cannot say anything about how that came about. She does not know how she got to the unit, or when or how her clothes came to be off, or anything else that happened before she woke up near dawn. In essence, her testimony is that she knows she did not consent because she would never have consented to have sex with a man who was old, married, and her boss (all three being attributes she ascribed to Mr. Stronach).

135L.S. was cross-examined at trial with respect to a note made by Officer Proulx in his interview with her in 2015, in which he wrote:

Complainant advised that she could not remember if consent or not granted.

Due to alcohol.

Complainant knows that under the right mind set, consent would not have been given – no married or older men.

136L.S. was quite insistent that she would never have used those words because she knew she did not consent and the words “due to alcohol” are “not in her vocabulary.” She said, “I knew it was rape the second I saw him on top of me.” ³⁷ She was adamant that it could not have been because of alcohol, because she was not sick and did not have a hangover. Officer Proulx was clear in his evidence at trial that he understood the importance of consent in a sexual assault investigation and that L.S. told him that she could not remember if she consented. Although L.S. was quite combative in her attitude when being cross-examined about this, I do not consider her evidence at trial to be entirely inconsistent with what she told Officer Proulx. She has no memory of anything leading up to actually being engaged in intercourse. Therefore, she cannot honestly say whether she consented or not, but she did clarify to Officer Proulx that “in her right mind” she would not have done so. That is remarkably close to her testimony at trial that she has no memory of what happened, but that knowing herself she knows she would not have consented.

137All I am left with on this count is L.S.’s insistence that she would not have consented to sex with Mr. Stronach. She claims not to have been drunk. There is no evidence to support any other plausible explanation for her inability to recall. She provided some details about the condo where she woke up that are consistent with it being Mr. Stronach’s condo at Harbourfront. However, she admitted googling for information after the fact and doing research about other things. She could have learned some information about the condo from those searches or from somewhere else. More importantly, many details she provided are inconsistent with the known facts. Her evidence about the layout was incorrect. She believed the bathroom was immediately next to the bedroom where she woke up, but it was not. She believed it was on the 6^th to 8^th floor, but the evidence has established that it was on the 12^th. Most importantly, her entire testimony centers on the moment when she woke up to see her face reflected in a mirror over the bed and Mr. Stronach on top of her. Again, this is a very visual memory and one that has been the cornerstone of her narrative every single time she has told her story about the alleged rape. If there was any evidence to corroborate the existence of that mirror, I might consider that helpful. However, there is none. Other complainants who testified to condos or apartments they were taken to by Mr. Stronach did not describe a mirror over the bed. Further, the defence called as a witness Jennifer Jackson, who was Mr. Stronach’s personal assistant at the time. She herself owned a condo in the same building before Mr. Stronach purchased his. Her unit was 803, and she said Mr. Stronach purchased Unit 1203. This unit was for Mr. Stronach’s personal use when he was in Toronto for events late at night and did not want to return home to Newmarket, or just as a place to change clothes between events. Other times, it was used by people visiting Magna from Europe, as a place to stay while they were here. Ms. Jackson was in charge of furnishing the condo. She said the furnishings were sparse because nobody was living there permanently. She said she was “definitely” clear that there was no mirror above the bed in the master bedroom. Further, she checked the apartment about once a week during 1980 and 1981, just to be sure everything was in order, which was easy for her to do because she lived in the same building. This check would include the master bedroom so that she would know whether to notify housekeeping to come in and clean. She testified that there was never a mirror over that bed.

138I found Ms. Jackson to be an honest and compelling witness. She is no longer employed directly by Magna. After finishing her job as Mr. Stronach’s personal assistant, which she held from 1987 to 1992, she had a career in business in the United States and later Canada, including sitting on the Board of various corporate emanations of Magna. She readily acknowledged still having a business/friendship with Mr. Stronach. I do not take from that relationship, that she would lie under oath to assist Mr. Stronach. I found her evidence that there was no ceiling mirror in the bedroom to be credible and reliable.

139I must contrast that evidence to that of L.S., which was neither credible nor reliable throughout. Most importantly, L.S. displayed a tendency to embroider events and retain them as vivid visual memories, notwithstanding that they were not rooted in reality. Her evidence about riding Glorious Song is one example. Her “engagement” to Dale Grant is another. Her entire memory of working at Beechwood Farms is very likely also in that category.

140L.S.’s whole memory of this event is firmly rooted in her vivid memory of waking up and seeing herself being raped by Mr. Stronach in the mirror over the bed. I do not believe there was a mirror. I do not believe L.S.’s memory of this event. Her evidence on this count suffers from all the weaknesses to which I have already referred in dealing with Count 2, and I will not repeat them here. L.S.’s multiple vivid memories that are ultimately false lead me to doubt the veracity of much of her testimony.

141Given the frailties of L.S.’s memories and the lack of any corroboration for any of the details she has recounted, along with the overall problems with her reliability and credibility I have already described, it is not possible to be satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt that this assault she described in the apartment ever happened based solely on her snatches of memory and her earnest belief that she would not have consented to sex with Mr. Stronach. There is nothing to corroborate any of it. It is simply not safe to base a criminal conviction on this evidence. I cannot be sure about what, if anything, happened.

142Accordingly, I find Mr. Stronach not guilty on Count 1.

(viii) Motivation to Fabricate

143Before leaving this analysis of the counts on the indictment involving L.S., I will deal with the defence position that L.S. deliberately fabricated her evidence either because of her hatred for Mr. Stronach (and other rich people), or because of her motive for financial gain, or both. While it is certainly possible that this was a deliberate fabrication, I ultimately conclude that L.S.’ narrative, while not rooted in reality, was not maliciously fabricated.

144It is clear that L.S. harbours considerable animosity towards Mr. Stronach. This is perhaps understandable if he committed the offences alleged against her. It would certainly be a natural reaction. Nevertheless, it is relevant to consider her possible motivation to lie about these events she alleges. As I see it, there are two possible motives arising from the evidence: (1) a general animosity towards the wealthy in general and Mr. Stronach in particular as a member of that group; and, (2) financial gain.

145Towards the end of L.S.’s first formal statement to the police in October 2015, she was asked what she would like to see happen as a result of her complaint. Her rambling answer included, “You know, he is rich. I got nothing. You know if he’s willing to…” The police officer interrupted her at that point, and L.S. then continued with “But it’s not, you know, that’s not really what I want. I want him to acknowledge that he did this and I want if he’s done this to other people, I want them to be able to come out too.”

146By 2024, she had retained a civil lawyer, and that lawyer actively solicited the Toronto Star to write an article about L.S.’s allegations, in the stated hope that others would come forward with complaints against Mr. Stronach. She gave interviews to CTV and CBC for the same reasons. She acknowledged in cross-examination that the same civil lawyer who accompanied her for her interviews with the Toronto Star is still her lawyer, and that she is waiting for the outcome of the criminal proceedings before deciding what to do about her civil claim (which she has not yet commenced).

147Over the years, L.S. has been active on social media, posting about Mr. Stronach in derogatory terms and about her opinions of rich people in general. There are many examples. I will cite just two. First, L.S. posted the following entry under a pseudonym in December 2020:

I’m getting hungry. So how exactly do we go about eating the rich? Do we wait until they are marinated and fattened up at some gala? Or do we pour them from their jets like beans from a can? Baked, boiled, or steamed. Are they best served up on a bed of green money? So many questions.³⁸

148When confronted with this and other posts showing a particular distaste for the rich, L.S. responded, “I was extremely angry at – my, my sense was that nothing had been done because he was wealthy.”

149Perhaps even more to the point, a post in December 2018, as follows:

All the more reason for harsher punishments. The crimes of the rich generally affect more people. Hit them where it hurts them. Seize assets. Perhaps the rich should be subject to mandatory minimums. I’m sure they would be happy to be judged by the people they screwed.³⁹

150I can appreciate why the defence has advanced the argument that L.S. made up this story of abuse because of her hatred for rich people generally, and Mr. Stronach in particular. There is certainly some evidence to support such a theory. However, I tend to agree with the Crown submission that if a person was going to invent a story, it would be a better story than the one presented to this court by L.S., full of holes, and gaps, and inconsistencies. I do not find her story to be a malicious fabrication. However, neither do I find it to be based in reality. She clearly knew who Mr. Stronach was. She was, as she described it, “a lowly groom” at Woodbine and would have seen him there often. Perhaps he slighted her in some way, or perhaps worse. She may well have been to his condo at some point. Maybe there was even a sexual encounter of some sort. I do not know. However, on the evidence before me, I am unable to sort out what is fact and what is fiction in the story L.S. presented to the court. I believe much of the detail she supplied was fueled by her animosity and imagination, and that she may now believe some of her own evidence. She may have convinced herself of the truth of her narrative, but that does not mean it is real, or credible, or reliable. Indeed, I find that her two core allegations – the digital penetration on the dance floor and waking up in the condo and seeing herself in the mirror above the bed while being raped – are neither real, nor credible, nor reliable. Her evidence most certainly does not constitute proof beyond a reasonable doubt. Nobody can be convicted of a criminal offence based on evidence such as this.

151Further, L.S.’s evidence does not rise to the “capable of belief” standard⁴⁰ required before it can be taken into account as similar fact evidence in a count-to-count analysis. It was for that reason that I alerted counsel during the argument of the similar fact evidence application that I would not be considering the evidence of L.S. as similar fact evidence capable of supporting other evidence from other complainants.

F. CHARGES RELATING TO V.T. (COUNTS 5 and 6)

(i) The Central Allegations

152The charges involving the complainant V.T. date back to the fall of 1977. At the time, V.T. was a legal secretary and would stop in at Rooney’s two or three nights a week to have a “quick drink” after work and socialize with friends. She testified that as a “regular” there, she would often see Mr. Stronach and they had a casual but friendly relationship. She understood Mr. Stronach to be an owner of the venue but believed that the time he spent there in the evenings was just to socialize. She described the regular booth he occupied in Rooney’s at the corner of the dance floor. On occasion, Mr. Stronach would invite her to have dinner with him at Le Connaisseur, and she would join him, describing their interactions as friendly.

153V.T. testified that on one such evening in the fall of 1977, after she had dinner with Mr. Stronach, he asked her if she would like to go see his apartment, which was nearby. She accepted that invitation and Mr. Stronach drove her there in his Cadillac. There was evidence at trial that Mr. Stronach habitually owned a Cadillac. She said the apartment was a typical 1960s style apartment building at Balliol and Mount Pleasant. She could not recall what floor this was on, nor any particulars about the apartment itself. However, she described an incident that occurred shortly after they arrived, which is the subject of Counts 5 and 6 on the indictment. Count 5 alleges an attempted rape; Count 6 (based on the same facts) alleges an indecent assault.

154V.T. described in detail the clothing she wore that night: a red wool top and skirt, grey shoes, grey purse, a bra, a half-slip, panties, and a garter belt with suspenders holding up her stockings. She was cross-examined about whether she was wearing panty hose as opposed to stockings. I did not find her evidence to be inconsistent on this issue. I accept her evidence that it was stockings held up by a garter belt (not that anything actually turns on that). V.T. testified that upon entering the apartment, she and Mr. Stronach took off their outer coats and Mr. Stronach disappeared for about three minutes. She assumed he was using the washroom. She simply remained standing beside an upholstered chair in the living room as she waited. She testified that the next thing she knew, Mr. Stronach came up behind her, without her hearing or seeing him, and pushed her from the back over the broad, heavily upholstered arm of the chair so that she was face down with her head and arms at the seat cushion level. She testified that he then pulled up her skirt and slip to approximately her hips and attempted to rape her. She said she could feel his hard penis in her vaginal area, but that it could not penetrate through her panties.

155According to V.T., she was in this position for two to three minutes before she stood up, which caused Mr. Stronach to step back. She then moved to the side past the chair, put on her coat, and left his apartment. At some point as she was leaving, she looked at Mr. Stronach’s face and described it as being expressionless. He made no move to stop her, and said nothing. She never went back to Rooney’s and never saw Mr. Stronach again.

(ii) Credibility and Reliability Analysis

156Defence counsel points out, correctly, that V.T. was exceptionally combative under cross-examination, describing her as “downright mean, rude, impolite, and ill mannered.” I do not disagree with that characterization. I also agree that her combative attitude was completely unnecessary. Defence counsel was always polite and professional, it was the witness who was objectionable. However, the fact that V.T. took offence to being cross-examined and was rude to counsel, does not mean she was not telling the truth. Frankly, she did herself no favours in taking the tone she did. It made it harder for me to analyze her evidence and assess its reliability and credibility. However, after careful consideration, I find that she was telling the truth about the central narrative of what she said happened between her and Mr. Stronach in that apartment.

157In particular, I found V.T.’s evidence about the assault itself to be fair and careful. She did not embellish or exaggerate. In cross-examination, V.T. conceded that she could not see whether Mr. Stronach was dressed when he was grinding into her vaginal area from behind. She conceded that she did not know if his penis was inside or outside his pants, and she agreed that penetration would have been impossible through her panties. However, she was adamant that what she felt was a penis, asking what else it could possibly have been. At one point, she followed up her statement about being sure what she felt was a penis by saying, quite spiritedly, “It wasn’t a cucumber. It wasn’t a carrot.”⁴¹ However, notwithstanding that argumentative stance, she never once claimed to have seen a penis, nor did she ever suggest that she knew Mr. Stronach was not fully dressed. In my view, this is a hallmark of honesty.

158At one point in her statement to the police, when describing this event in the apartment, V.T. said “I guess he had his pants down.” When this was put to her in cross-examination, she pointed out that this was merely a guess and that she could not actually say that his pants were down because she could not see him. Again, this seems honest to me. Although she referred at times to “penetration” and stated her belief that he was “attempting to rape” her, she could not be taken to know the legal definitions of these terms. She readily conceded that she did not know if his penis was out of his pants and that actual penetration was impossible in the circumstances. I do not find there was any exaggeration or embellishment in the words she used given what she was experiencing at the time. V.T. was adamant that she could feel the hard penis pushing on her panties in her vaginal area. Although defence counsel spent considerable time putting to the witness that she could not possibly know what it was, V.T.’s responding question about, “what else would it be?” was a fair comment.⁴² In my view, V.T., although a belligerent witness at times, did not exaggerate her evidence with respect to what actually happened.

159When V.T. was asked at trial what level of force Mr. Stronach used to push her over the chair, she described it as “fairly forceful” and then added that “it wasn’t violent, but it was firm.”⁴³ This is another example of V.T. being measured and fair in her evidence, without embellishment. I find this bolsters my conclusion that she is simply telling the truth.

160I recognize that the act described by V.T. was “bizarre.” She used that word herself in describing it. That does not suggest to me that she invented it. To the contrary, someone seeking to manufacture a story of sexual assault or attempted rape would surely not invent this singular act and maintain that she did not even know if her assailant’s penis was out of his pants.

161I find no inconsistency between V.T.’s insistence that she was “not much of a drinker” and her testimony that she was a “regular” at Rooney’s and would go there several times a week to socialize with friends. A person does not have to drink alcohol to socialize with friends at a disco. In any event, V.T. never described herself as never drinking, but rather that she drank very little. I find no inconsistency in those two concepts.

162V.T. described Mr. Stronach as being very charming and friendly. She said she trusted him. However, she said that after her experience with him that night in his apartment, she realized that he was not just being friendly. To the police, many years later, she described him as being a “serial womanizer.” She testified at trial that he was always in the company of pretty, young women. V.T. testified that she never saw Mr. Stronach again after that night, so all these observations she made of his friendliness and flirting with young women at Rooney’s must have happened before then. V.T. was asked on cross-examination why she would agree to go to Mr. Stronach’s apartment if she knew about this kind of behaviour and that he was a womanizer. However, V.T. persistently maintained that she had no understanding of this until after she had been assaulted. She said this changed her opinion of him, and his “friendly” and “flirty” behaviour took on a different character in her mind. It must be remembered that when this event is said to have occurred in 1977, V.T. was 25 years old. It was nearly 50 years ago. I do not know how naïve V.T. might have been in 1977, but I very much doubt that she was as assertive and confident as she is now. I do not find it unbelievable that a naïve young woman at the age of 25 would not see Mr. Stronach’s flirtatious behaviour at the disco he owned as being anything more than sociable and friendly, but then feel horribly betrayed (as she said she was) when he conducted himself as he did in that apartment. Her testimony about this issue does not cause me to doubt her evidence about what Mr. Stronach did in the apartment.

163I recognize that V.T. did not give a plausible explanation for why she went to the apartment with Mr. Stronach. She said it was about 9:00 p.m. The disco was still open. There was nothing distinctive about this apartment, and no particular reason to go there. She knew this was not his permanent residence and that he had a home with his family north of Toronto. She testified that Mr. Stronach simply asked her if she wanted to see his apartment and she agreed. It seems to me that even a naïve 25-year-old in 1977 would recognize this invitation to a nearby apartment as some sort of romantic overture. However, V.T. was quite adamant that her only understanding about Mr. Stronach was that he was charming and friendly. V.T. was also very resistant to the defence suggestion that she was “flirting” with Mr. Stronach. She described Mr. Stronach as flirting, but insisted that her own conduct consisted only of “friendly banter” and that she did not flirt. However, she told the police in her 2024 statement that Mr. Stronach would flirt with her, and she would flirt back. When confronted with this, she attempted to distance herself from the word “flirt” and suggested that I would understand how Burns and Allen would banter back and forth (assuming, correctly, that we are both of an age to remember Burns and Allen!). She explained that people would flirt and “you would give them what they gave back. And it would be an exchange, a friendly banter, but it had no substance to it.”⁴⁴

164It may be that V.T. engaged in some flirting with Mr. Stronach. I don’t see much difference between that expression and the “friendly banter” expression she seemed to prefer. It may also be that V.T. understood there was some kind of romantic overtone in being invited to Mr. Stronach’s apartment. Perhaps she does not want to characterize it that way now. Perhaps she seeks to minimize her own interactions with him to avoid the suggestion that she was leading him on in some way. Or perhaps, after the passage of 50 years, this is the way that she remembers her own behaviour. It does not matter whether she flirted, nor does it matter why she went to Mr. Stronach’s apartment. What matters is whether the conduct she attributed to Mr. Stronach happened. Did he come up behind her without warning, push her over a chair, raise her skirt, and grind his crotch into her vaginal area over her panties?

165Based on the evidence before me, I am satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt that this is indeed what he did.

166There is, however, one detail about V.T.’s description of this assault which strikes me as inaccurate. She said she was bent over the chair with Mr. Stronach’s groin being pushed into her vaginal area for two to three minutes before she stood up and ended the encounter. At the same time, she described this event as being over very quickly. Three minutes is a very long time to be bent over a chair, motionless, while conduct such as this was going on. The actual length of time was likely much shorter. However, it is well known that a person in a situation of trauma will often misperceive time and frequently believe something went on for far longer than it actually did. Often, there will also be a period of time where the person freezes and tries to process what is happening and how to react. However, I still think it unlikely that this event went on for three minutes. In any event, I do not find the inaccuracy about this detail detracts from the overall credibility or reliability of V.T.’s evidence as to the essence of what happened. Given the circumstances of confusion and shock, this mistake about timing does not cause me to reject her evidence as untrustworthy.

167It is unfortunate that the police did not make any inquiries or attempts to locate this apartment. V.T. said the building was not distinctive and that there were many others in the same area that were just like it. Given the passage of time, it is unlikely she would be able to identify the building in any event, and determining which unit Mr. Stronach might have used nearly 50 years ago would be even more unlikely. The absence of such inquiries by the police does not cause me to have a reasonable doubt. I accept that Mr. Stronach already had his condo at Harbourfront by this time and that his personal assistant was not aware of him having another apartment in the Balliol area. However, that simply means she did not know about an apartment, not that it did not exist. Further, he may not have been the tenant of the apartment; he may simply have borrowed it from a friend or acquaintance. The evidence, or lack of evidence, about Mr. Stronach having an apartment on Balliol does not cause me to have a reasonable doubt about V.T.’s evidence.

168I am also not concerned about some of the peripheral memories that V.T. disclosed after her initial police interview. For example, she confirmed that she remembered having dinner with Mr. Stronach before going to the apartment and that she had lobster, whereas initially she was unsure about the dinner. Also, she subsequently remembered how she got home after leaving the apartment. These are minor details and do not detract from or add to the central narrative about the assault itself. I also take no issue with the complainant failing to contact the police as soon as she remembered these points. She cannot be taken to have known about the Crown’s duty of ongoing disclosure. Nor can it be said that there was any prejudice to the defence in not getting these late disclosures until a month or so before trial.

169Finally, I have given careful consideration to what I consider to be a contradiction in V.T.’s evidence. V.T. first contacted the police about her allegations against Mr. Stronach in June 2024 and was formally interviewed on video on June 13, 2024. At that time, she told police that she had come forward after seeing a news release about Mr. Stronach’s arrest. In her evidence at trial she reiterated that she had contacted the police after seeing a news release in which the Peel Regional Police were asking members of the public to come forward with any relevant information they had. She understood that they were investigating four cases of sexual assault and she thought perhaps her information about the apartment on Balliol could provide some corroboration, to show he had a little hideaway. When asked if she had seen or heard anything in the press about this case since being interviewed by the police in June 2024, she said she had not, explaining that she had been instructed not to do so. She said the only thing she had seen was a headline on the front page about the trial being delayed, which was two weeks before the trial started before me. V.T. was specifically asked by the Crown whether she had ever heard or read any details of anybody else’s individual accounts, and she denied that she had. V.T. was later cross-examined on this issue and continued to insist that she had never read a newspaper article that provided any information about specific allegations made by another complainant. It is an Agreed Fact between counsel that this is inaccurate. In her meeting with the two Crowns and police in September 2024, V.T. told them that she had read the Toronto Star article which featured the story of L.S., including her specific allegations against him. This admission was made by the Crown after V.T.’s evidence was already complete.

170Although this is certainly a contradiction, it does not undermine my faith in V.T.’s honesty as a witness at trial. When she gave her police statement on June 13, 2024, the Toronto Star article had not yet been published. The article was published in July 2024. When V.T. next met with the police officers and the prosecuting Crowns, she was told to avoid all media coverage of this case. She told them she had already read the article about L.S.’s allegations, which I consider to be an indication of honesty. I accept her evidence that since then, she has not read anything about this case. I do not think she deliberately lied about having read about the particulars of L.S.’s allegations. It may be that she has simply forgotten that she read about it two years ago, or that she understood the questions to be related to the period before she went to the police with her own story. If I thought she had deliberately lied, I would consider that to be a difficult problem for her overall credibility. Being confused about what she read and when and how much detail she had been aware of is a different matter. In my view, any information V.T. gleaned from the Toronto Star article has had no impact on her evidence at trial. She did not read it until after giving her statement to the police. Her evidence at trial largely follows what she told the police in June 2024. Further the details of L.S.’s story are quite different from L.S.’s narrative about what happened to her. L.S. said she was groped and digitally penetrated by Mr. Stronach while on the dance floor at Rooney’s. V.T. testified that she saw Mr. Stronach frequently at Rooney’s and he struck her as being kind, friendly, and gentlemanly. L.S. described Mr. Stronach tearing a hole in her pantyhose. V.T. was quite clear that she was wearing nylon stockings, not pantyhose. L.S. described forced non-consensual intercourse at Mr. Stronach’s Harbourfront condo. V.T. described a bizarre act in which Mr. Stronach flipped her over and was grinding his groin into her vaginal area from behind.

171Although V.T. read that article, I find it had no impact on the evidence she provided in court and I do not find that, in all the circumstances, her credibility is undermined.

(iii) Count 5: Attempted Rape

172Count 5 was withdrawn by the Crown. L.T. testified that she did not know whether Mr. Stronach was fully clothed. She also said that she considered it would have been impossible for him to penetrate her vagina through her panties. An intent to achieve vaginal penetration is an essential element of the offence of attempted rape. Given the evidence with respect to the state of dress of both the complainant and the accused it would not be possible to be satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt that Mr. Stronach had the specific intent to commit rape, but simply failed to achieve that objective. The Crown acted properly in conceding that a conviction could not properly be entered on this charge.

(iv) Count 6: Indecent Assault

173The law to be applied here is the law that existed at the time the offence was committed, which was in 1977. The offence of indecent assault existed in 1977. Indeed, although it no longer exists, it was on the books until 1983. That is why Mr. Stronach is charged with “indecent assault” with respect to this conduct, pursuant to what was then s. 149 of the Criminal Code.

174First, the Crown must establish beyond a reasonable doubt that there was an assault, which is the deliberate application of force to a person without that person’s consent. That element is clearly made out. Mr. Stronach came up to V.T. from behind, pushed her over without saying a word, pulled up her skirt, and made contact with her body forcibly with his own. The level of force is not required to be violent. The degree of force used by Mr. Stronach was sufficient to constitute assault.

175In my view, it is clear on the evidence that there was no consent to this contact by V.T. – it was simply forced upon her before she had any idea it was going to happen. V.T. was repulsed by this act and stood up and left the apartment. She was not subjectively consenting to this act. Further, there can be nothing she said or did to give any impression to the contrary. V.T. was cross-examined about her saying to the police that, “Maybe he thought it was consensual, but like it wasn’t.” She responded that she does not know what was going through his mind, which is obviously true. However, that does not mean that there is any evidence to sustain a finding that he might have believed there was consent. When meeting with the police, V.T. repeatedly said she did not consider herself to be a victim, but that she could speak to Mr. Stronach’s “propensity to act in an ungentlemanly manner.” When cross-examined on this, V.T. proclaimed that she considered herself a survivor, not a victim. As for whether this conduct goes beyond “ungentlemanly behaviour” and is properly described as criminal conduct, that is a question of law for me to decide. It does not matter that V.T. cannot read Mr. Stronach’s mind, or how she would label his conduct, or that she does not want to label herself as a victim. I have determined what happened and it is for me to determine whether this was a criminal assault. I find there was a deliberate application of force without V.T.’s consent. That satisfies the first branch of the test.

176Next, the Crown must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the assault is morally offensive or offending against notions of modesty and decency. Clearly, Mr. Stronach’s act was sexual in nature. The question is whether it was an “indecent” assault. The definition of “indecency” is one that courts struggled with over the years. There may be situations in which an assault that is sexual in nature is not, by definition, an indecent assault. However, this case does not pose a challenge in that regard. V.T. was 25 years old. Mr. Stronach was a man of considerable wealth and experience and was 20 years her senior. While V.T. was simply looking out the window of his apartment, he flipped her over a chair and pushed her skirt up. That could be indecent assault by itself. But standing over her and grinding his pelvis into her vaginal area is, quite simply, gross and disgusting conduct. I am satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt that Mr. Stronach’s conduct in committing this assault was indecent and morally repugnant within the meaning of what was then s. 149 of the Criminal Code.

177Accordingly, I find Mr. Stronach guilty of indecent assault under Count 6.

G. CHARGE RELATING TO A.S. (COUNT 12)

(i) The Central Allegations

178Under Count 12, Mr. Stronach is charged with sexually assaulting A.S. in a single incident that occurred between January 4, 1983 and Dec 31, 1984. A.S. testified that for two years (which she estimated to be somewhere around 1983 and 1984), she was employed for three nights a week as a cocktail waitress at Rooney’s. She knew that Mr. Stronach was the owner and would sometimes see him there, either in the restaurant area or at his regular booth near the dance floor. She sometimes served him but did not otherwise have any interaction with him. She said she did very well at Rooney’s, earning between $800 and $1000 per week, including tips. Unexpectedly, when she reported for work one day, she was told that she was fired. The only reason she was given was that “you and Rooney’s don’t mix.” She was puzzled and upset by this. However, she quickly obtained another waitressing job at Pier 4, a restaurant on the waterfront.

179A.S. testified that the reason she was given for being fired made her angry. Also, she was earning significantly less money at Pier 4 than had been the case at Rooney’s. She wanted to know the “real reason” she was let go and therefore called the Magna head office, spoke to Mr. Stronach’s assistant, explained that she was a former waitress at Rooney’s, and asked if Mr. Stronach would call her back. She testified that she knew Mr. Stronach was not “hands-on” at Rooney’s but thought that as the owner he could get an explanation for her. She said that a few days later Mr. Stronach called her back. She told him what was said to her at the time she was fired and he told her he would look into it. Then shortly after that, he called her again, told her he had some information for her, and suggested she meet him for dinner at the Admiral Inn, another restaurant on the waterfront near Pier 4.

180A.S. agreed to meet Mr. Stronach for dinner. She said he was polite, respectful, and seemed to genuinely care about her situation. She described how, upon first meeting at the restaurant, he kissed her on both cheeks in the European style, to which she took no offence. In examination in chief, A.S. testified that Mr. Stronach said he had learned that the Rooney’s management fired her because they believed she was selling drugs there. A.S. was adamant that she had never done this. She testified that she did not take any drugs, apart from occasional marijuana, and was a non-drinker.

181In cross-examination, it was suggested to A.S. that, notwithstanding four prior statements given to the police, her testimony at trial was the first time she had ever said that Mr. Stronach told her that the restaurant management had accused her of dealing drugs. She seemed surprised by that suggestion, but the transcripts of those interviews confirm that she had never before explicitly described it that way. It is possible she may have disclosed it during her preparation interviews with the Crown and police (two of which were followed by videotaped statements), but there are minimal notes of those interviews so it is impossible to say for sure. Defence counsel referred A.S. to her police statements in which she described her interactions with a drug dealer who was a regular customer at Rooney’s and attributed this to the reason she was fired. A.S. agreed she had told this to the police, but still considered these to be connected. She told the police, and confirmed in her testimony at trial, that the drug dealer was persistently hitting on her at Rooney’s, and that she rebuffed him every time. She also said that he was the one who caused her to be fired. Although this is not the way she described it in her evidence in chief, it is not necessarily inconsistent.

182A.S. testified at trial that apart from discussing the reasons given by Rooney’s for firing her, she does not remember what else was discussed over dinner with Mr. Stronach, but recalled that they did have a pleasant conversation. Mr. Stronach had some drinks during dinner, but she did not. She did not notice any change in his level of sobriety. She said he told her that he had a condo nearby and invited her to come see it and that he would then have his driver take her home. She accepted that invitation. She said that up to this point he had been respectful and “fatherly” towards her. She had enjoyed having dinner with him and genuinely appreciated that he had made the effort to obtain this information for her.

183A.S. knew Mr. Stronach’s driver (Glenn) because he would regularly drive Mr. Stronach to Rooney’s, typically on Thursday nights, and then wait there and chat with staff until it was time to drive Mr. Stronach home. She said that on the night in question, Glenn drove her and Mr. Stronach from the restaurant to his nearby Harbourfront condo, and that she understood Glenn was waiting outside to drive her home after she had seen the condo.

184A.S. testified that upon arriving at the condo, Mr. Stronach took her coat and asked if she wanted a drink. She said she declined, but thought he had a drink. She described the atmosphere as immediately feeling different upon arriving at the condo. She said she felt afraid, while acknowledging that “it’s not like he said or did anything” to cause that. She said there was “just a vibe that made me very uncomfortable” and she felt that his intentions had changed since leaving the restaurant. She described the hair on her neck standing up, and her heart pounding so hard that she could hear it in her ears, and thinking that she should not have gone there. She referred to this feeling as something a woman knows innately.⁴⁵

185A.S. testified that she realized she should not have agreed to go to the condo and therefore told Mr. Stronach that she was grateful for his help, but that she needed to leave. She said he went and got her coat and helped her on with it when she was close to the door. Then he leaned in to kiss her on both cheeks (as he had done before at the restaurant), but this time she felt he was much closer to her. He was holding her coat by the front lapels and collar. She said he then ran his hands up and down her sides, inside the coat, but over her clothing, touching the sides of her breasts and going down to the buttocks. She described it as “fondling.”⁴⁶ He said something to her about wanting her to stay or asking her to stay. She knew he was interested in having sex with her. She pulled back and told him clearly that this was not happening. She said he immediately stepped back, giving her space, and told her Glenn would drive her home. She left the condo without incident and found Glenn waiting in the car outside. He then drove her home.

186A.S. had no further contact with Mr. Stronach, but a while later she received a call from Rae Kirkwood, who worked for Mr. Stronach at Magna and was the same assistant she had spoken to earlier. Ms. Kirkwood said that Mr. Stronach had given her a referral for a job and invited her for an interview. She went for the interview and was hired as a receptionist at the head office. One of the perks of the job was a car. She said that her first such car was a used Chevette, but after that, she was given a new car every two years, along with an allowance for gas and car washes. A.S. was with Magna for four years, in three different jobs, and then transferred to Vista Magazine, which was owned by Magna. She left Vista in 1989 because she was moving to Vancouver. She spoke positively about her time at Magna and Vista, described Ms. Kirkwood as a terrific boss, and said she would see Mr. Stronach in the Magna offices occasionally and he always was “pleasant,” “polite,” and “professional.”⁴⁷

187A.S. testified that she contacted the police on August 9, 2024, the day after she saw a television news story about Mr. Stronach being charged with sexual assault and him telling a reporter that all the complainants were lying. She gave a formal statement to police on September 1, 2024.

188Initially, Mr. Stronach was charged with two offences in relation to this incident – one count of unlawful confinement and one count of sexual assault. Subsequently, upon being served with a subpoena to attend in court, A.S. objected to the unlawful confinement count, telling the police that at no time did she consider she was being confined. That charge was withdrawn before Mr. Stronach was arraigned before me. There is one remaining count – sexual assault between January 4, 1983 and December 31, 1983.

(ii) Credibility and Reliability Analysis

189I found A.S. to be a compelling, believable, and truthful witness. I am completely convinced by her evidence that, knowing she had expressed a wish to leave his apartment and as he was helping her with her coat at the door, Mr. Stronach groped her body, briefly but without her consent, in some kind of attempt to persuade her not to leave. I have no doubt at all that this happened. However, as some issues were raised about the reliability of her evidence, I will set out my reasons for this finding in some detail.

190A.S. was cross-examined about her evidence at trial that Mr. Stronach told her that people at Rooney’s had accused her of dealing drugs and that was why she was fired. I accept A.S.’s explanation that the accusation of drug dealing is simply a detail that she had not provided before, but which was not new to her, in her own mind. She seemed genuinely surprised to learn that she had not specifically said that before. In her mind, this was linked to the drug dealer who was the person who got her fired. I find this to be a plausible explanation.

191A.S. cannot be expected to remember every word that was spoken during her dinner with Mr. Stronach, nor even every topic that was discussed. I attach no significance to the fact that she does not remember any discussion with Mr. Stronach about an alternative job to the one she lost at Rooney’s, or whether he might be in a position to help her with that. It might be a logical thing for them to have discussed, particularly in light of the later job offer at Magna. However, that does not mean it was discussed, nor does her failure to remember it even if it did happen, raise any issue of credibility or reliability.

192A.S. was also cross-examined about her use of the word “fatherly” to describe Mr. Stronach while they were having dinner. She said she thought she had used that word in her meetings with the Crown attorneys in her preparation for trial, but the calibre of note-taking at these meetings was far from ideal. It is possible she used that word and the officer did not write it down. It is also possible that she did not use that precise word. However, I am not troubled by it. Her description of Mr. Stronach’s conduct at dinner is consistent throughout, even if she did not use the word “fatherly” at any point prior to the trial itself.

193Glenn Anderson was Mr. Stronach’s driver between 1980 and 1990. He did not remember A.S.. He could remember only two employees from Rooney’s – the “coat check girl” and Charles (the DJ). During his 10 years at this job, which was over 30-40 years ago, he drove many different people to many different places. He said he rarely spoke to any of the passengers in his vehicle. A.S. said she did not speak to Glenn at all during the whole drive home. There would be no particular reason for him to remember this occasion, and I attach no significance to the fact that he did not remember it. He himself said it would be “totally impossible” for him to remember such an occasion.⁴⁸

194It is clear that A.S. came forward to police after hearing or reading something in the news about Mr. Stronach having been accused of sexual assault by multiple different women. That initial contact was made on August 9, 2024. She testified at trial that she contacted the police after seeing a short news report about the sexual assault charges on the 6:00 p.m. television news. However, P.C. Paul Baron testified that he spoke with A.S. on August 9, 2024 and that she told him that she was prompted to make the report because she had seen something in the news about the allegations against Mr. Stronach and that in the article, Mr. Stronach was said to have called the complainants liars. Officer Baron acknowledged that his notes were not verbatim and could not be sure if she saw this or read it.

195The defence contends that it can be no coincidence that A.S. went to the police just two days after CBC posted an article online that basically summarized the context of the Fifth Estate program. That article was posted on August 7, 2024. A.S. was adamant that she saw a short clip on television, not a print article, and not the Fifth Estate program. I accept that it was in the Fifth Estate program that Mr. Stronach accused the complainants of lying. However, just because the CBC had an article on their website on August 7, does not mean that A.S. could not have heard a shortened version of this on a television newsclip on August 8 and then gone to the police on August 9. She was not lying about ever having seen the CBC Fifth Estate program. She acknowledged seeing a one-hour long television production, which based on some of the things she described, was clearly the Fifth Estate program. However, A.S. said she saw this subsequent to her initial contact with the police. I do not think anything at all turns on this. It is an issue of timing only. A.S. saw the program at some point, and she knew about allegations of sexual assault and Mr. Stronach saying his accusers were lying prior to going to the police. Nothing about this causes me to doubt A.S.’s testimony about going to Mr. Stronach’s apartment and what transpired there. It was very different from the assaults described in the Fifth Estate program. The only small bit of information that could have possibly been relevant to A.S.’s allegations was the place at which the alleged assault occurred – i.e. the condo at Harbourfront. However, I completely accept that Mr. Stronach took A.S. there. She most definitely is not making up this whole story.

196The defence attempted to establish that the evidence given by A.S. about the actual incident at the door as she was leaving, which is at the heart of the sexual assault allegation, was never disclosed before and has changed over time. I disagree. A.S. maintained in her evidence that she was simply providing more details and that these details have always been known to her. She said she was not asked for this level of detail before. I accept that explanation. It is consistent with the other evidence. She always referred to the groping incident as happening at the same time as she was leaving. She also said it involved Mr. Stronach kissing her. At trial, she simply provided more detail about the mechanics of the coat and the touching. Also, she clarified that again this was a “European style” kiss on both cheeks. If anything, this description at trial diminishes the seriousness of the incident. She clarified at trial that he had not kissed her anywhere other than both cheeks, just as he had done when greeting her at the restaurant. There is nothing about these additional details that undermines the reliability or credibility of her testimony.

197Officer Baron testified that he asked A.S. if she had told anyone about this assault before and she told him that she had confided in her roommate Cindy and her boyfriend at the time, Charles Khabouth. He recorded contact information for both. In her formal statement to the police on September 1, 2024, A.S. again said she had told both these people about the assault at the time, and with respect to her boyfriend stated, “I know for a fact he knew about it.” However, in his evidence at trial as a witness for the defence Mr. Khabouth denied knowing anything about the incident.

198Mr. Khabouth testified that he had been dating A.S. in 1983 for about nine months. He was 23 years old at that time and he believed she would have been about one year younger. He said she used to work as a waitress at Rooney’s and then moved to work at the head office for Magna. He said he had a clear memory of her getting a brand-new car when she started at Magna and said it was a silver-grey Topaz. He commented that it was unusual for people to get a company car back in 1983. He agreed that he owned an after-hours club called Club Z at that time, but denied that A.S. ever worked there. Mr. Khabouth had no recollection of A.S. ever telling him she was being “hit on” by a drug dealer at Rooney’s or of going there at all when she was working. Initially, he did not recall her working at another restaurant in between Rooney’s and Magna, but when specifically asked about Pier 4 in cross-examination he recalled that she might have mentioned working there. He denied that A.S. ever told him anything about an incident with Mr. Stronach and denied knowing anything about her being fired at Rooney’s. He also did not remember a roommate named Cindy. However, he acknowledged that it has been 42 years and there are things he simply cannot remember.

199It is difficult to know what to make of this discrepancy in Mr. Khabouth’s memory of 1983 and that of A.S. Mr. Khabouth was dating A.S. for nine months between 1983 and 1984. They remained friendly after that, but were not close. There would be no particular reason to remember her roommate, whereas A.S. is much more likely to remember her. It is also more likely that A.S. would remember that the first car she got at Magna and Mr. Khabouth is remembering a subsequent car. The real question is whether he would remember if she told him about being fired or told him about the incident involving Mr. Stronach. A.S. was not asked if she told her boyfriend about being fired. He initially said she moved from Rooney’s to Magna’s head office because she got a good offer to make the move. However, he later admitted that he might have known about her working at Pier 4. I think he might have also known she was fired from Rooney’s, which might not have seemed like such a big deal given that she got another job almost immediately, and an even better one at Magna not long after that. Those events would tend to blur after the passage of decades.

200However, Mr. Khabouth’s inability to recall hearing about an incident involving Mr. Stronach is a more serious discrepancy. In cross-examination, A.S. was reminded that she had told the police that she confided in Charles Khabouth about what happened with Mr. Stronach. She immediately responded that she did not remember telling him, but if she told anyone, the two people prominent in her life that she might have told were her boyfriend and her roommate. She said that before knowing what Mr. Khabouth had told the police. Both she and Mr. Khabouth testified that they had not had any communication at all since her police interview, and I believe them. When told on cross-examination that Mr. Khabouth told the police he knew nothing about the incident with Mr. Stronach, A.S. agreed that it was “possible” she did not tell him.

201I felt that both these individuals were trying their best to tell the truth about what happened 42 years ago. I think the likely explanation for Mr. Khabouth having no memory of being told what Mr. Stronach did may be that he did not, at the time, think much of it. Let me be clear, I am not minimizing what Mr. Stronach did, and I am not suggesting it was not a sexual assault. However, on the scale of what many people consider to be a “sexual assault” it might not be considered to be more than trivial by some people. Further, I know this was even more the case in the early 1980s and might have been described as “making a move” or “making a pass.” In my view, it is entirely possible that A.S. did not bother mentioning this incident to her boyfriend, it being yet another incident of being “hit on,” which was by no means uncommon in the hospitality industry or the corporate world at that time. I also consider it possible that she told her boyfriend, that he did not think it was a huge deal at that time, and he has no memory of it 42 years later.

202I have given this issue a good deal of thought and have ultimately concluded that it does not shake my faith in the truth of A.S.’s evidence.

203I have also considered the point made by the defence that a young woman who had been violated in this manner and who was as scared as A.S. described herself as being in that moment, would never have accepted a job at the head office of Magna. The reality of it, however, is that it was a great job offer and she needed a better job than she had at Pier 4. She also testified that she was resolved not to put herself in that position of vulnerability again and not to spend any time with Mr. Stronach alone. I also come back to my earlier point about the nature of the “assault” itself, that its seriousness was minimized even by A.S. herself, and the fact that Mr. Stronach backed off immediately as soon as A.S. firmly expressed her lack of consent. She believed that he was a “gentleman” and that she would not have any problem with him at Magna. In the circumstances, that was not an unreasonable assessment.

204Underscoring my trust in the reliability of A.S. as a witness, and my firm belief in her honesty, is the extreme fairness of her evidence. In many ways she was cross-examining herself, wondering if she was giving “mixed messages,” saying how brief it was, minimizing the extent of the touching, stating her belief that Mr. Stronach would not know how scared she was, and noting that she did not say or do anything to indicate to Mr. Stronach that she was not consenting to anything until after he had touched her breasts and hips under her coat. Those are not the words of someone fabricating an allegation of sexual assault. Those are the words of a woman trying to give the accused the benefit of any doubt. She had no axe to grind with Mr. Stronach. With the exception of this one incident, she readily agreed that he had always treated her well, and had been respectful. In her final interview with the Crown before trial, she told them she preferred to be “only a witness.” When asked in cross-examination what she meant by that, she stated:

Where did I say I prefer to be a witness? I really don’t even want to be here right now, to be honest. I don’t want to be a witness.⁴⁹

205Although A.S. was cross-examined on a possible motive to lie about this assault with the prospect of financial gain, I find that the evidence establishes the very opposite. Clearly, A.S. has had some difficult times as a single mother and in part arising from her former partner’s drug addiction. However, the way in which she has recounted her story amply illustrates that she has not invented a story for financial gain. She constantly minimized the extent of any aggressive actions by Mr. Stronach. The example provided of her lawsuit against Loblaw’s for a slip-and-fall claim also adds nothing to the equation. She settled that claim for $10,000, and her denial that she was seeking $200,000 is understandable as a failure to recall the amount her lawyer had inserted in the statement of claim. The fraud accusation was also completely explained away. There was no fraud, merely a misunderstanding and resultant overpayment, which was repaid. The absence of a motive to lie does not, of course, mean the accusations are true. I merely refer to this theory of the defence to point out that I find it to be unsupported by the evidence.

206The bottom line is, I watched A.S. testify and I have given lengthy and careful thought to the weaknesses in her evidence. Those difficulties have been explained to my satisfaction. They do not shake my confidence that the event she described did happen, just the way she described it. I believe her, and I find her evidence to be reliable.

(iii) Count 12: Sexual Assault

207The first issue to be determined is when this incident occurred. The charge in Count 12 alleges a sexual assault, contrary to s. 246.1(1) of the Criminal Code, between January 4, 1983 and December 31, 1984. That provision of the Criminal Code did not come into force until 1983. Therefore, if the assault occurred in 1982, it cannot be sexual assault under this section, as it did not exist in 1982.

208In her initial contact with the police in August 2024, A.S. said that she had been assaulted in the summer of 1982. However, her subsequent testimony establishes that she was mistaken about that date. She testified that her first job as a cocktail waitress was at the Nag’s Head. She said she had to be 18 to get that job. Her date of birth is February 4, 1963. She turned 18 in February 1981. She said she was at the Nag’s Head for one to two years before being hired at Rooney’s. Even if that is taken at the low end of her estimate, she would have started at Rooney’s when she was 19, in February 1982. She also testified that she had been at Rooney’s for about two years before she was fired. Even if that estimate is cut in half, that would mean she left Rooney’s when she was 20, which was in 1983. In my view, this is the earliest date upon which this incident occurred, it could easily have been later. Mr. Khabouth testified that he started dating A.S. in 1983, when he was 23 and he believed she was a year younger. He said that at the time she was working at Rooney’s. Based on the whole of the evidence, I am satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt that this incident occurred in either 1983 or 1984, and was definitely after the amendment to the legislation creating the offence of sexual assault. The indictment correctly states the applicable offence and date range.

209The next issue to be resolved is whether the conduct of Mr. Stronach constituted sexual assault. In my view, the only conduct that could be characterized as an assault is Mr. Stronach running his hands up and down along A.S’s sides while helping her on with her coat. There is no question about anything else that happened that night being an assault.

210A.S. testified that she thought Mr. Stronach would not have known how terrified she felt. She did not say or do anything to indicate she was even uncomfortable. She readily agreed to accompany him to his condo. She admired the view. She engaged in chitchat. Later, she wondered whether she was sending him “mixed messages.” However, she did absolutely nothing to invite Mr. Stronach to run his hands over her body.

211This was not an accidental touch in the course of helping A.S. on with her coat or kissing her on the cheeks to say goodbye. She participated in those actions, although not reciprocating. But there is nothing about helping somebody put on a coat that requires running one’s hands up and down the other person’s body underneath their coat. This was deliberate touching. A.S. was very clear that in her own mind she was terrified about the vibe she was getting from Mr. Stronach and she wanted to leave. She was certainly not consenting to Mr. Stronach touching her in this manner. Accordingly, I conclude that this touching meets the legal definition of an assault.

212Finally, I must determine whether this touching was sexual in nature. A.S. testified that Mr. Stronach was touching the sides of her breasts and down to her buttocks or hips. Further, he was doing so after she said she was leaving, which he obviously knew because he was helping her on with her coat. A.S. also testified, and I accept, that while doing so, he was expressing his wish that she stay longer. She felt it was a sexual overture. I agree that this is the inevitable conclusion when the entire context is considered. The nature of the touching, the areas touched, and the circumstances in which this occurred support the conclusion that the nonconsensual touching was sexual in nature.

213I am satisfied on this evidence that all components required to constitute sexual assault are proven beyond a reasonable doubt. I have considered whether the defence of honest but mistaken belief in consent can have any application here, notwithstanding the absence of any evidence from the accused. I recognize that A.S. has acknowledged that she did not say anything or do anything to make her lack of consent clear to Mr. Stronach until after he touched her. I also recognize that she pondered afterwards whether she had sent mixed messages. Whatever the complainant thought about what was going on in the mind of Mr. Stronach does not change whether she consented or not. She ultimately concluded that although he might not have known how frightened she was, she did not actually consent to anything. She did not initiate any contact, nor did she say or do anything to initiate contact from him. He just proceeded to touch her without asking. While this might be just the way many men acted back in the eighties, that does not excuse the conduct, nor does it make it consensual. I conclude that there was nothing in these circumstances that could have caused Mr. Stronach to believe A.S. was already consenting. Her mere agreement to come to his condo does not mean she was consenting to be touched, particularly after she had already expressed a wish to leave. He might have hoped she would consent. And, when it was apparent she was not consenting, he immediately stopped. However, the touching he did engage in was non-consensual and he had no proper or honest basis to believe it was consensual.

214My analysis on this point does not end there. It is with considerable trepidation that I use the word “minor” as a modifier of “sexual assault.” Nevertheless, it must be recognized that the offence of sexual assault covers a very broad spectrum of offending conduct, ranging from violent, penetrative forced intercourse that is degrading in the extreme to far less egregious conduct. The conduct in this case is decidedly at the low end of that spectrum. Indeed, there would be many who would argue that the kind of touching here should not be considered a crime, even if it technically meets that definition.

215In order to have fulsome submissions on this topic, and again with some trepidation, I raised with counsel during their closing submissions whether there was any kind of “de minimus” standard that would apply. I am not aware of any case law supporting this and was not referred to any by counsel. Upon reflection, I have concluded that this concept should not be applied. The conduct, although minor, was nevertheless touching of a sexual nature without consent. That makes it sexual assault. The minor or trifling nature of the touching involved is an issue for sentencing, not for determining whether a sexual assault has occurred.

216Accordingly, I find Mr. Stronach guilty under Count 12.

H. CHARGES RELATING TO J.J. (COUNTS 9, 10, and 11)

(i) The Central Allegations

217In the early 1980s, J.J. was a secretary at an international investment bank. She went to Rooney’s on occasion and testified that one night when she was there, Mr. Stronach asked her out on a dinner date. She said that after having dinner with him, he invited her to his nearby apartment for a nightcap. After some initial mutual kissing, she said she told him to stop and that she was not there for that”. She said that he then dragged her to the den, pulled her onto a cot (where there was some more mutual kissing), ripped her pantyhose to shreds (over her protests), and then forcibly raped her as she wept. Then he drove her home.

218The precise date and year when this is alleged to have occurred are unclear, but it would appear it was sometime between 1980 and 1984.

219In connection with this incident, Mr. Stronach is charged under Counts 9 and 10 with the historic offences of rape and indecent assault which are alleged to have been committed on a date between January 1, 1980 and January 3, 1983. The same facts are relied upon for both charges. They are duplicative, and in these circumstances, Count 10 (indecent assault) is subsumed within Count 9 (rape).

220New legislation came into force on January 4, 1983. Rape and indecent assault were no longer offences after that date. Instead, the offence of sexual assault covered all non-consensual touching of a sexual nature. Accordingly, Mr. Stronach was charged with the modern offence of sexual assault between January 4, 1983 and December 31, 1984, to cover off the possibility that the incident alleged by J.J. occurred in 1984.

(ii) Analysis of Credibility and Reliability

221The Crown’s written submissions point out that, of all the complainants, J.J.’s narrative was the “clearest” and was “unencumbered by large gaps in memory.” I agree this is an accurate description of J.J.’s examination-in-chief. Defence counsel referred to J.J.’s examination-in-chief as more of a performance piece, with “scripted evidence” into which she would drop irrelevant information to portray herself as a highly successful businesswoman who is constantly doing charitable works. While a colourful description, I have to acknowledge that it is not inaccurate. What is relevant for my analysis however, is the change in this presentation that emerged in cross-examination. I will therefore first summarize J.J.’s evidence-in-chief, and then contrast it to what emerged in cross-examination.

(a) Testimony in Chief: The First Meeting and Dinner Date

222At the outset, J.J. testified that she was self-employed and that she is the founder of three companies: (1) a “capital markets advisory firm” which is the holding company for the other two; (2) a media company; and (3) company that runs a conference once a year to connect investors and companies involved in a particular sector of the economy. She said that the conference began in 2022 and has grown by 300% in four years, with an expected 30% growth for this fifth year.

223J.J. was born in November 1956. She has a Grade 12 education. Based on what she did in her twenties and which apartments she lived in, she placed the incident involving Mr. Stronach as occurring between 1982 and 1983. She testified that she was “an administrative assistant” for an investment bank at that time, having started working there in 1980. In the early 80’s she had been taken on dinner dates to the restaurant at Rooney’s (about three times), which she described as a “very chic little supper club.” She also went to the bar a number of times with girlfriends, just to dance and socialize, usually on a Wednesday or Thursday. She had seen Mr. Stronach at the club and heard people say he was the owner and that he was wealthy. On one such evening, when she was sitting alone, Mr. Stronach approached her, introduced himself, and asked if she would like to go out for dinner with him. She accepted. She described herself as being “flattered” and agreed that he would pick her up at her apartment. She said the dinner date was for the Tuesday or Wednesday of the following week.

224J.J. described making a conscious effort to wear something “sophisticated and conservative” because she was going out with an older gentleman. She chose a black chiffon halter dress (without a bra because there was a “little bit of support” built into the dress). She remembered tying it very tightly so there was no gaping in the front. She also wore black pantyhose and black pumps and carried a black purse. She did not wear underwear because she “didn’t want panty lines to show.” Over the dress, she wore a black bolero jacket because “she didn’t want to show too much skin.” Obviously, the clothing a woman wears is irrelevant to the issue of consent. However, it can be relevant for other purposes. The pantyhose and lack of underwear is relevant here because of her allegations of Mr. Stronach ripping them apart later in the evening. It is also relevant to note the degree of detail J.J. purports to remember from 45 years ago, including what she was thinking about every item of clothing she chose as she was preparing for her date.

225J.J. testified that Mr. Stronach came to pick her up at about 6:30 or 7:00 in the evening. She said it was already dark. She therefore believed it must have been in the spring or fall because it would have been lighter if it was summer. Also, she was wearing pantyhose and shoes and a light jacket, so it could not have been winter. According to J.J., Mr. Stronach arrived alone to pick her up and was driving “a very low-slung, sort of sexy German”⁵⁰ sports car, with two doors and a sloped back roof. She acknowledged not knowing much about cars, but believed it to be a Porsche Carrera.

226J.J. testified that Mr. Stronach took her to a restaurant called The Lighthouse, which was a revolving restaurant at the top of a hotel at the Harbourfront. They parked in the underground lot and then took an elevator to the top floor restaurant. They were seated next to each other on a banquette. He ordered a bottle of wine with dinner and she had one or two glasses. She said she had all her faculties with her, that she was not drunk, and she was not drugged. She thought the dinner lasted an hour or an hour and a half tops. She could not recall what she ate for dinner, but did remember the dessert, which she described as “little chocolate ice cream things” delivered with great fanfare on a tray with a genie’s lantern and dry ice pouring off it.

227J.J. could not remember what they talked about during dinner, but volunteered that she was working for an investment bank at the time and was “peripherally, of course, involved in some very large” business deals and they “could have exchanged viewpoints on that.” She did not recall whether Mr. Stronach told her about his business interests, but said that he could have.

(b) Testimony in Chief: The Move to the Apartment and the Incident on the Couch

228At the end of the dinner, Mr. Stronach told her that he had an apartment attached to the restaurant building and invited her to come for a nightcap, to which she agreed. They took an elevator down from the restaurant and then walked through a glass walkway to a nearby building, and then up another set of elevators to the apartment. She said it was “very high” but was not sure of the exact floor.

229J.J. described the apartment as being dimly lit. She did not get the “grand tour,” but after coming in they went to a living room area and sat side by side on a couch. She described the decor as being “very 70, 80’s [coded]” and “very moody and very dark” with a suite of black leather furniture, chrome, and dark shag carpeting. There were lots of windows with a great view of the lake. She said after sitting on the couch, she believed Mr. Stronach poured himself a drink but she could not remember if she drank anything.

230She testified that they talked for a little while, although she could not remember what about, and that Mr. Stronach then turned towards and tried to kiss her. She said she “kind of rebuffed him” by moving away and telling him, “No, I’m not here for that. That’s not what I came here for.” He responded by standing up, grabbing her hand, and saying “Come with me.” He then dragged her towards a room she described as a small bedroom or den.

231The Crown asked J.J. how she responded to this move, and she replied as follows:

Internally, I'm like, you know, he wants to make out. Right? And I'm like I need to get home because I have to go to work tomorrow. But in my mind, I'm trying to manage the situation. So I'm like reluctantly being pulled into this bedroom. And by reluctantly, I mean I am behind him. He's got a hold of my hand. And he is literally — I'm not saying he's dragging me, but I'm not going really willingly. Like my — I'm dragging my feet to get there. Because I'm trying to think how I'm going to get out of this because I really don't want to have a make out session with him. I don't want to smooch him. But in my mind, I'm like, okay, fine. We'll have a few smooches. I'll get out of there, and he'll take me home or hopefully I have the money to — wherewithal to take a cab.⁵¹

232To be sure that I understood what she meant, J.J. asked if she could step out of the witness box to the body of the courtroom and demonstrate what this would have looked like. I agreed. She demonstrated that her right arm was extended forward at about chest level (and was being held by Mr. Stronach who was in front of her). She was moving forward, while dragging or shuffling her feet, without lifting her feet up at all. She explained, “This happened very quickly. Like sitting down, rebuffed, come with me. Boom. We’re in this room.”⁵²

(c) Testimony in Chief: The Incident in the “Den”

233J.J. testified that Mr. Stronach dragged her into a small room with a cot, which was smaller than a twin bed. He lay down on the cot and pulled her down on top of him. He then manoeuvred himself so that his back was against the wall and he was propped up on his side. She was then flat on her back so that her right arm was now trapped underneath his body, leaving only her left hand free. J.J. testified that he was “trying” to kiss her, and she was trying to “manage the situation” by giving him some kisses and “half-heartedly participating.”⁵³ When asked if he was succeeding in kissing her, she replied “Not really” and then elaborated on that by saying, that he was “not the best kisser” and was “kind of sloppy.” She acknowledged that their lips were making contact, but said “My point is, this is not enjoyable.”

234J.J. said that Mr. Stronach next started to caress her thigh and pull up her dress. She said she grabbed his hand with her left hand and said, “I’m not here for that. No.” He looked at her and said “Yes.” When asked what she did then, she testified:

And I said, no. This is not happening. And he said, yes, it is. By this time, I've been — it was like a war of hand, like, like a tug of war, and he was determined to ride my dress up. And then, you know, he took his hand, he grabbed the crotch of my pantyhose, and he just yanked. And he ripped it. So the sound of that ripping, to me, first, first of all, I will never forget. Secondly, I knew I was cooked. I was like, you are not getting out of here. This is happening to you. There's no way that you are going to stop him. I was like maybe 120 pounds soaking wet in those days. This is a big man. He's got you trapped and you are — you're cooked. There's nothing you can do about this.⁵⁴

235She described Mr. Stronach as being angry and “really aggressive” and said he tore at her panty hose until they were “annihilated” leaving just a waistband. She said he then unzipped his pants, pulled out his penis, climbed on top of her, and penetrated her vagina until he ejaculated. She described that she just lay there with both her hands by her sides until he was finished. She said she was crying throughout the whole ordeal, but softly so as not to further anger him. She described feeling “paralyzed” and “helpless.” She did not speak during this time, nor did he, but she described him as “grunting.” She said the whole thing took two to three minutes, after which he let her go and she went into the bathroom to clean herself up. When asked if he kissed her during the sexual intercourse, she said, “Absolutely not. This was not about kissing. This was never about kissing.”⁵⁵

(d) Testimony in Chief: The Aftermath

236J.J. tried to get herself together in the bathroom before going out to face Mr. Stronach, but said she could not stop crying. When she did come out, she went to the living room and sat on the couch next to him. She described herself as sobbing uncontrollably. She told him she wanted to go home and asked him to call a cab. He insisted that he would drive her home. She said he was looking at her “in a very strange manner.” She speculated that he thought it was bizarre that she would not stop crying. She agreed that he could drive her home because she did not know where she was and only had $20.00 in her purse, which might not be enough for cab fare.

237According to J.J., she cried for the entire 20-minute drive home. When Mr. Stronach got to the circular driveway in front of her apartment building, he put his hand on her knee and asked to come upstairs with her to her apartment. She said she was shocked by that and yelled “No.” She then got out of the car and ran to the apartment lobby door. Once inside and waiting for the elevator, she looked out to the driveway through the lobby window and saw that Mr. Stronach got out of his car and was standing there watching her over the roof of his car.

238J.J. testified that upon reaching her apartment she had a complete breakdown, crying and sobbing. She took her ruined pantyhose out of her purse and took off the dress and threw everything into the garbage. She said she felt “embarrassed and ashamed” ⁵⁶ and recalled talking to herself, telling herself that she was a “stupid girl” and that she “should never have gone out with him in the first place.” She said she told herself:

Now, you’ve got to shut up and get going, and you’ve got to get yourself to work tomorrow. So you know what you’re going to do? You’re going to bury this, and you’re never going to talk to anybody about it as long as you live because you, you should never have gone out with him in the first place. This is your fault. Don’t you dare ever talk to anybody about what happened. That’s what I said to myself that night. And that’s what I’ve been saying to myself for 40 years.⁵⁷

239J.J. testified that she never went back to Rooney’s, and never saw or heard from Mr. Stronach again.

(e) Testimony in Chief: First Disclosure and Possible Tainting

240In June 2024, J.J. was at a conference in Quebec organized by her company. Her close friend and colleague, C, was also at the conference. At breakfast that morning C told J.J. that she had just read a news article about Mr. Stronach being arrested and charged with sexually assaulting a number of women. J.J. described being shocked by this news. J.J. said the “blood just drained from my face” and that she kept saying, “It’s him. It’s him. It’s him.” To herself, she was thinking that she was not the only one.

241J.J. did not go to the police immediately. A couple of months later, on July 29, 2024, she emailed the police and then went to the police station in Mississauga on August 2, 2024 and provided a video-taped statement. The Crown asked her what she had been doing between finding out about the other charges in June and going to the police herself. J.J. took that opportunity to make a long speech (about a page and a half of the transcript) about all the good works she does for university students and various charities through her company. When redirected to the question, she said that before going to the police she went online and did some research about the allegations against Mr. Stronach. She mentioned in particular that other women had met him at a restaurant and also that she read about one woman who had her pantyhose ripped by Mr. Stronach. This information would have come from a press interview with L.S. However, J.J. has not met or spoken to any of the other complainants or Jane Boon, a woman who has spoken publicly with media regarding her sexual experience with Frank Stronach.

242Prior to going to the police, J.J. also consulted lawyers for advice. She explained that “a person like me, running a million-dollar business, needs legal advice.” She said she would not waive privilege with respect to those discussions (nor was she ever asked to do that). However, she said one of the lawyers she spoke to was Michael Wilchesky (who also acted for L.S. and Jane Boon). When asked how many times she met with Mr. Wilchesky, she said “only once” and also said that she did not hire him. When asked how many other lawyers she met with prior to going to the police, she said “probably three of four.” The Crown asked why she chose to do that before talking to the police, while at the same time cautioning her not to disclose any solicitor client privilege, to which she responded, “Someone like me needs legal advice.” When asked what she meant by that, she again spoke at length in a self-aggrandizing way, stating:

Well, I’m not some retired housewife, you know, and no, no disrespect to housewives or retired people. Please don’t take that out of context. But, you know, I’m incredibly active in my community. I’m well known. I’m interviewed a lot. I’m risking a lot just being here today. Like I don’t think that people understand the risk that I have. I have massive sponsors. You know [listing five large corporations]. These are billion dollar corporations. I have built this thing from nothing. And, you know, they don’t want to hear about this stuff. They don’t want to hear about this stuff being messy. And I work in a highly male dominated industry…So I would not want to risk that. I wouldn’t want to risk the community looking at me differently. I’m not here – I don’t want to be known for this. I want to be known for what I did for the community. What I did for young people. That I’ve built an amazing platform for Canadian [..]companies to talk to global investors. That’s what I want to be known for. Not this.⁵⁸

243When asked if she had sought financial compensation from Mr. Stronach or filed a lawsuit, she answered, “I have not filed a lawsuit. And no amount of money could ever fix this.” She said she ultimately decided to go to the police to do the “right thing” and to support the other women who had come forward, as well as doing it for herself to give her younger self “some grace.”

(f) Cross-Examination – General comments

244There was a marked change in J.J.’s tone and demeanour under cross-examination. When simply asked non-leading questions in-chief, she told a detailed and compelling story. She occasionally wandered into self-congratulatory stories about her multi-million-dollar companies and her own charitable works, but overall her evidence was smooth and polished. She was quite different in cross-examination – hostile, combative, wandering off topic. This is, needless to say, not uncommon for witnesses who are telling an emotional story and feel affronted when their truthfulness is challenged. However, I found her demeanour to be so strikingly different that I consider it worth commenting on. The demeanour of a witness, particularly one who has been traumatized, is never a reliable indicator of truthfulness. However, neither is it completely irrelevant.⁵⁹

245In cross-examination, J.J. again veered multiple times into comments about her accomplishments, her multi-million-dollar companies, and her charitable works. When confronted with inconsistent testimony, she several times referred to how difficult it is for a “tax-paying citizen” to testify in court. There is no question that testifying in court is difficult, especially about traumatic events, and even more so about events that occurred over 40 years ago. However, being a citizen is irrelevant, and paying taxes is likewise irrelevant. Her three multi-million-dollar companies are essentially: one holding company (which owns the other two companies and has no other function); one subsidiary that is somehow media-related but does not do much of anything; and one subsidiary that hosts a conference once a year for Canadian companies in a particular sector and potential investors in that sector. Out of these enterprises, J.J. takes a yearly salary of $60,000. Although perhaps millions of dollars pass through the companies’ books as registrations for the conference are received, an almost equal amount flows back out for expenses. There are charitable works, but most of the funding comes from the investor companies, and some from the company that organizes the conferences. J.J. does not “personally” cut a cheque for anything, although she often made that claim. However, in one sense it does come out of her pocket as she is the sole shareholder of the company. The whole operation is run out of her home. Her colleague testified that they were not able to have email addresses dedicated to the company that runs the conferences because it was too large an expense. While J.J. deserves credit for what she has accomplished, which no doubt includes some charitable work, she does have a tendency to exaggerate her importance. I do not see that she has achieved a level of affluence sufficient to rule out a financial motive in bringing forward these charges. That said, for reasons I will develop later, I doubt that money is at the root of these allegations against Mr. Stronach.

246J.J. testified that she was in a car accident six years ago and sustained a head injury, resulting in ongoing difficulties with her short-term memory. She said she had no problems with her long-term memory and could recite dissertations about things long ago. However, she would never go shopping without a list. This presents an interesting problem with respect to how to deal with inconsistencies in her evidence. Where the inconsistency is between something a witness remembers now as compared to what happened or existed about 45 years ago, inconsistencies are easily explainable by the passage of time. If a statement was taken or notes were made 45 years ago and therefore closer to the event, it would be perfectly normal for the witness to refresh her memory by referring to the earlier record when her memory was more likely to be accurate. However, in this case, no notes were made at the time. A police statement was given in 2024, there was testimony at the preliminary hearing in 2025, and then testimony at trial in 2026. When the witness reviews her statements from 2024 or 2025, is she refreshing her memory about what happened in 1980, or just about what she said about the events one or two years ago? Further, if the witness gives one version of an event in 2025 and says something different at trial in 2026, what does that mean? Does it show that she cannot remember what she said a year ago? Or does it show that she now has a different memory of something that happened in 1980? If so, how can it be said that one memory is any more reliable than the other? These questions make it difficult for me to determine which, if any, version of the witness’s memories are reliable.

247At times, J.J. gave evidence at trial that was inconsistent with her prior evidence 11 months before at the preliminary hearing, and/or two years before in her police statement. Sometimes her explanation for this was to maintain that this was attributable to her “short-term memory” difficulties because of injuries sustained six years ago. Perhaps this is how J.J. understands the term “short term memory,” but it is not accurate. Short term memory is concerned with very short periods of time – measured in seconds or minutes, not months or years. Even the related term “working memory” would not be an explanation for this kind of lapse. No medical evidence was filed to explain the impact of J.J.’s head injury six years ago on her ability to record or retain memory, however her testimony leads me to be concerned about the impact of the injury on the reliability of her evidence. The only evidence on the point is her own explanation that she can remember things from the distant past in great detail, but not “short term” things. What this may mean is that her ability to store and retain memories has been impaired since the accident six years ago, which would include the whole of the period of time when she was finding out about the stories of other women, giving her statement to the police, testifying at the preliminary, and then testifying at trial. If so, that raises concerns about what she remembers about where she got her information: from things she read in her Google searches in 2024, or what she now remembers as happening to her over 40 years before that. I am not in a position to make that determination. It is difficult to know why her memory of what happened to her in 1980 would be different in 2026 from what it was in 2025. However, it does raise concerns about the reliability of any of her evidence during that time frame. Further, even in areas where she has been consistent, is that because she remembers what she read in the transcript from her 2025 testimony, and has repeated it in 2026, or because she has an accurate memory now and also in 2025 about what happened in 1980. Determining the reliability of memories going back 40 to 45 years is always a difficult problem in historical assault cases. However, when overlaid with internal inconsistencies and an explanation that these memory problems are the result of a head injury from six years ago, prior to ever reporting the assault, my task becomes even more challenging.

248With that general context, and having already summarized J.J.’s evidence-in-chief on March 2, 2026, I now turn to the evidence from her cross-examination on March 3 and 4, followed by an analysis of the reliability and credibility of J.J.’s evidence.

(g) Cross-Examination: The First Meeting and Dinner Date

249In chief, J.J. painted a very detailed and vivid picture of being back in her apartment after her “date” with Mr. Stronach and talking to herself about needing to pull herself together because she had to work the next morning. Under cross-examination, J.J. conceded that she told the police that Mr. Stronach had arranged to pick her up on Saturday night for their dinner date and she did not work on Sundays. That is inconsistent with what she said at trial. When confronted with that inconsistency, she said the information she gave the police was wrong. It had not been a Saturday night. However, she had reviewed that statement to the police five separate times before testifying at trial and been asked if there was anything she wanted to correct. Yet, she did not tell them she had been mistaken about the day of the week. She also conceded making notes for herself while watching the statements, which makes it even odder that she would not have told the police and/or Crown that she now remembered this detail about having to go to work in the next morning, so the dinner date could not have been on a Saturday. It was not until the contradiction of a Saturday night date with this very detailed memory of talking to herself about needing to go to work in the morning that she said she had been mistaken in her statement to the police.

250J.J. has consistently provided a very detailed description of the black German sportscar Mr. Stronach was driving, which she believed to be a Porsche Carrera. Based on the substantial other evidence at trial, it is very unlikely Mr. Stronach was driving anything other than a Cadillac. Jennifer Jackson, Mr. Stronach’s personal assistant at that time testified that it was a policy at Magna that all senior people had to drive cars manufactured in North America because Magna’s primary customers were North American car companies. She also said that Mr. Stronach always had a Cadillac and that she never saw him in any other car. Glenn Anderson, one of Mr. Stronach’s personal drivers, also testified that Mr. Stronach always had a Cadillac, and never any other kind of car.

251There was also evidence that Mr. Stronach would typically have used a driver in those days, but that was not an invariable practice. With respect to this particular night involving J.J., I have no difficulty accepting that he might have driven himself that night. However, I do not believe he would have been driving a Porsche. J.J.’s explanation when confronted with this in cross-examination is that she is not an expert in cars and, in any event, maybe he borrowed the car from someone. I cannot be definitive about this. It is within the realm of possibility that he borrowed somebody’s Porsche for this date, but highly unlikely. What is more likely is that J.J. has developed an elaborate and detailed memory that is untrue. She may remember it that way and believe it, but it is highly unlikely to be true.

252J.J. described the dinner as being purely “social,” “not a romantic dinner,” and said there was “nothing amorous going on.” She said there was no physical contact between them. It was then put to her that after she accepted Mr. Stronach’s invitation to go back to his apartment for a nightcap, they were holding hands while walking there. She agreed that this was her testimony at the preliminary hearing and in her police statement. It was then suggested to her that she had agreed at the preliminary hearing that “they were being physical somewhat with one another post the dinner.” She conceded that point, and then gratuitously added:

Sure, I’ll, I’ll give you that. It’s if you want to call it – like to me holding hands, I could hold the hand of a toddler. I hold the hand of my girlfriend. You know? I mean, it was like, “Here, we’re going this way.” I didn’t feel it was romantic, but it was a physical touch. Yes.⁶⁰

253This is an example of the combative change in tone and demeanour I observed in J.J. in her cross-examination, as compared to her examination-in-chief.

(h) Cross-Examination: The Move to the Apartment and Incident on the Couch

254It is difficult to reconcile some of the inconsistencies between J.J.’s evidence in chief about what happened in the apartment and what she said in cross-examination on that same topic.

255J.J. was cross-examined about why she accepted the invitation to Mr. Stronach’s apartment after dinner. She had previously said she was “flattered” to be invited out to dinner by an older man, who she described as “debonair.” She was careful with her clothing, wanting to appear sophisticated for her date. However, she resisted the suggestion in cross-examination that she was “excited” to be going to the apartment of a wealthy, older man. She insisted that they were either going to have a nightcap or talk about business or both. She agreed they could easily have had a nightcap in the restaurant without any need to transfer to the more private and intimate setting of his apartment. She also said that she wasn’t much of a drinker and that if he did pour her a nightcap at his apartment (about which she was unclear in her memory), she did not drink it. However, she maintained that since the only thing they had in common was “business and finance,” she believed the purpose of going to the apartment was to continue their discussion about that. She pointed out that she was an administrative assistant at a major investment bank and had been involved in a number of very big financial transactions. J.J. bristled when it was pointed out that at the time she was 24 years old and known as a “secretary,” not an administrative assistant, and that she had described herself as a “secretary” to the police when she gave her initial statement. She retorted, “Well I guess I’m both aren’t I?” When pressed further by defence counsel about being “a 24-year-old who was very excited about a wealthy man taking her home,” J.J. responded:

What does that have to do with anything? I don’t understand what you are getting at. And I don’t understand why that is – why it is important to what actually happened. It doesn’t matter if I was excited and it doesn’t matter if I talked to him about Genghis Khan, or finance, or business, or anything. What matters is he raped me.⁶¹

256Defence counsel asked her the same question again and J.J. responded, “Maybe I was being polite… In my mind, maybe we can talk more about whatever we were talking about.”⁶²

257In chief, J.J. had testified that as soon as Mr. Stronach made a move to kiss her, she “rebuffed him”, drew back, and said “No, I’m not here for that. That’s not what I came here for.” She said his response to that was to take her by the hand and drag her towards the bedroom. In cross-examination, she was taken to her testimony at the preliminary hearing in which she said, “Well, I kissed him. He kissed me and I pulled back.” J.J. then conceded that there had been some consensual kissing with Mr. Stronach on the couch before she told him she was “not there for that.” She also was confronted with her testimony at the preliminary hearing that Mr. Stronach had put his arm around her when they were on the couch and that he was “nuzzling” her around her neck and/or ears. She conceded that all this activity (the arm around her, the nuzzling her neck, and then consensual kissing) occurred prior to her making any objection about “not being there for that”. When asked to confirm that sequence of events, she answered:

No means no. No means no. If I had kissed him passionately and then changed my mind, what difference does it make?⁶³

258Needless to say, and although not responsive to the question she was asked, J.J. gave a correct statement of the law. Even if consent is initially given to sexual contact, it can be withdrawn at any time. However, that is not the problem with her evidence about the activity on the couch. In her police statement, J.J. alluded to Mr. Stronach being “amorous” on the couch, and in her preliminary hearing she expanded on this to describe his arm around her, his nuzzling her neck, and consensual kissing. However, in her evidence-in-chief at trial she testified that, while on the couch, as soon as Mr. Stronach tried to kiss her, she rebuffed him and told him she was not there for that. I have considerable difficulty reconciling that inconsistency. J.J. has provided extremely detailed accounts of many aspects of her interactions with Mr. Stronach going back over 40 years. She attributed her memory for details to her seven years of private art tutoring. At the preliminary hearing in April 2025, she gave details about what would appear to be consensual interactions on the couch. Eleven months later at trial, she could not remember them. She attributed this to her problems with short term memory. But these are memories going back 40-45 years, which she claims are not a problem for her. She said she has no difficulty with her long-term memory. My concern is that she does not remember the consensual kissing and nuzzling now because, notwithstanding reading and re-reading the transcripts of the preliminary hearing from 11 months ago, she cannot remember what she said on that occasion. My query, therefore, is whether this is truly a memory of something that happened over 40 years ago. If, after the lapse of 40 years, somebody could not remember these kinds of details, that would be perfectly understandable. What troubles me is the fact that J.J. purported to have remembered it for 39 years, described it in detail at the preliminary hearing, and then forgot it less than a year later.

259J.J. accepted in cross-examination that there was consensual contact that was sexual in nature while she and Mr. Stronach were on the couch and before she said “I’m not here for that.” Given that this was information she provided to the police and at the preliminary hearing, and that it to some extent favours the accused, I find this to be more believable than her initial testimony at trial that this did not happen. J.J. consistently stated that it was after this statement that Mr. Stronach started to draw her towards the bedroom. However, her confused memory about what happened on the couch, also raises a question as to whether she actually said “I’m not here for that” while on the couch. If she forgot the arm around her neck, the nuzzling, and the consensual kissing, why would her memory of telling him “I’m not here for that” be accurate? In fact, her memory of what triggered that protest was different at trial than at the preliminary hearing.

260In cross-examination, J.J. again described the way she was dragging her feet as Mr. Stronach was pulling her towards the bedroom (as she had said and acted out in her earlier evidence). Defence counsel then showed her a sketch depicting the layout of Mr. Stronach’s apartment. Upon entering, there are six steps leading up to the sitting room, with the couch J.J. had described. J.J. said she did not recall going up any stairs. More importantly, the sketch shows that there are six stairs down from the living room to the area where the bedroom and bathroom are. J.J. agreed that the manner she described in dragging her feet was inconsistent with going down a flight of stairs. However, she then insisted that the apartment she was in was a different apartment from the one shown in the sketch. She said the stairs “would have been something that stuck in my mind.”

261It is clear to me that the apartment J.J. describes visiting with Mr. Stronach was his apartment on the 14^th floor. Her description of the location, height, and furniture matches the evidence of other witnesses, in particular Mr. Stronach’s secretary who herself lived in the building, furnished his unit for him, and was familiar with the layout (which was similar to her own unit). I am also fully satisfied on the evidence that the sketch shown to J.J. was an accurate depiction of the apartment as it existed at that time. It is also clear that J.J.’s memory of the way she was dragging her feet while being led towards the bedroom is impossible. However, it is a vivid memory for her, so clear in her mind that she went to the considerable effort of physically demonstrating in the courtroom what this looked like. She seemed to be actually reliving the moment as she was doing this. And yet, it did not happen that way. I find as a fact that she was in Mr. Stronach’s apartment on the 14^th floor, and that the stairs were in that apartment. J.J. could not have been pulled down those stairs in the manner she described, without falling. The difficulty is that this purported memory is so clear in her mind, and her evidence on the point was so vivid, that her only way of dealing with the impossibility of it was to insist there were no stairs and therefore she was in a different apartment – not that she was mistaken about how she got to the bedroom, but rather that the stairs simply did not exist. This is similar to her clear and detailed memory of the features of the Porsche she remembers Mr. Stronach driving. Her explanation for that is that she has not mis-remembered the nature of the car, but rather Mr. Stronach must have borrowed somebody else’s German sports car for the night, which is highly improbable.

(i) Cross-Examination – The Incident in the “Den”

262In cross, J.J. acknowledged (as she said in chief) that she did not protest as Mr. Stronach led her to the bedroom. She described rolling her eyes, but said that she did this “internally,” not in a manner Mr. Stronach could recognize. As I already discussed, given the physical layout and the stairs, she was not dragging her feet as she described. She also testified that she had resolved in her own mind that she would play along for a bit, give him a few “smooches,” and then go home. Thus, in the course of moving from the couch to the bed, there was nothing in her body language or words that would communicate any lack of willingness to participate in further sexual contact.

263J.J. acknowledged that upon arriving in the “den,” she engaged in “smooching” with Mr. Stronach. She also acknowledged that this was not different in nature from the consensual kissing that had happened on the couch. In cross-examination, when asked to clarify what that meant, she said it was a “small make out session.” She denied wanting to do this, but said she thought she had no choice and was trying to “manage the situation.”

264Ms. Shemesh submitted that it was “peculiar to say the least” that J.J. would engage in kissing and nuzzling on the couch, object to that, and then proceed to a more private and intimate setting of a bedroom, without protest, to engage in that kind of activity again. I agree it could be perceived as odd, although it is well-known that there is no particular way any woman will react in any given situation.

265The incident in the “den” started with J.J. lying on top of Mr. Stronach on the bed and kissing him, without giving any external indication that this was anything but consensual. Although she said she felt she had no choice, according to her own evidence Mr. Stronach had not done anything violent or aggressive at that point, nor had he threatened her in any way. Also, she acknowledged never having told Mr. Stronach that she wanted to go home until after the whole incident had concluded.

266Initially when J.J. was asked in cross-examination about whether the kissing on the cot began when she was lying on top of Mr. Stronach, she said she could not remember if the kissing occurred at that point or after she wound up lying on her back. She was then taken to her testimony at the preliminary hearing, and in particular to the following exchange:

Q. Okay. And I take it then when you get into this bedroom, you’ll correct me if I’m wrong, but is there kissing?

A. On the bed in the beginning.

Q. Yes.

A. As he pulls me down, yes, there is some kissing.

Q. Okay. And at this stage, is it different or the same as the kissing that took place on the couch?

A. It’s pretty much the same.⁶⁴

267After having this read to her at trial, J.J. adopted her previous evidence from the preliminary hearing, stating, “Okay. I’ve had my memory refreshed. Thank you.”⁶⁵ Again, the question here is what memory is being refreshed: her memory of the event over 40 years ago? Or her memory of what she said at the preliminary hearing 11 months before her testimony at trial? In particular, does she have any real memory of precisely what happened and in what order over 40 years ago? Or has she reconstructed or imagined what she believes might have happened and now forgotten her previous evidence about it? Or is she simply lying and failing to keep her story straight?

268According to J.J., after mutual kissing while she was on top of Mr. Stronach on the cot, he then changed their positions, so that she was lying on her back and he was lying on his side next to her, and he began to put his hand up her leg and pull up her dress. She testified that at this point, she again said “I’m not here for that. No” and that he looked at her and said “Yes.” If J.J. in fact said those words to Mr. Stronach and he then proceeded to tear a hole in her pantyhose and penetrate her vagina with his penis as she described, that would clearly be a crime (whether sexual assault or rape, depending on the date). J.J. describes not doing anything to resist while this was going on. She kept her hands to her sides and just lay there weeping softly. Failing to resist or to make repeated refusals does not constitute consent. J.J.’s prior engagement in consensual kissing also does not constitute consent to future sexual acts. Once she says no to his next move, everything changes. However, the issue for me is whether J.J. ever said the words “I’m not here for that. No”, or anything similar. My concern is that this clear memory of uttering those words may be similar to the memory of being dragged into the den – something J.J. imagines she would have done, or perhaps even wishes she would have done, but about which she does not actually have a memory. Likewise, J.J. said that she had “an internal conversation” with Mr. Stronach about wanting to go home, but never actually said that to him. I am concerned that her memories of the “I’m not here for that” statements may also have been an internal conversation, and never actually spoken aloud. Lack of consent is an essential element of this offence and I must be satisfied that the Crown has proven this element beyond a reasonable doubt. Discrepancies about what J.J. said aloud, as opposed to what she may have been thinking in her head, can be important in this context, particularly given that she acknowledges being engaged in mutual kissing while lying on the cot.

269I also have concerns about J.J.’s purported vivid memory of Mr. Stronach tearing her pantyhose to shreds. Prior to going to the police, J.J. researched online for details about the accusations others had made against Mr. Stronach. In her evidence in chief at trial she testified that one of the articles she read was about a woman who had her pantyhose ripped and that she was particularly struck by this specific detail, stating “I was like, oh my God. That happened to me too.” This testimony followed close on the heels of a preparatory meeting she had with the Crown and police on January 19, 2026 in which she disclosed having read this article and noting the detail about the pantyhose (obviously, the Toronto Star’s article about L.S.). However, at the preliminary hearing in April 2025, J.J. was asked in cross-examination about having read this, and she completely denied it. In her cross-examination at the trial before me, she was taken to her evidence at the preliminary hearing, as follows:

Q. Your position is that Mr. Stronach then rips the pantyhose and you refer to the ripping and the fact that a hole is made in the nylons?

A. Correct.

Q. A hole that you say permitted penetration to occur?

A. Correct.

Q. And you say he does this with one hand?

A. Correct.

Q. And your narrative, you would agree, is one that you provide the police after reading about a woman in the Toronto Star who had claimed there was a hole in her nylons. Would you agree with that?

A. I can’t remember reading that.⁶⁶

270When confronted with this inconsistency in cross-examination at trial, J.J. testified that she recalled that the woman’s pantyhose had been ripped now, and that she recalled it in January 2026. It was then put to her that this must, therefore, be a memory she always had from before she gave her initial statement to the police and that she was lying under oath at the preliminary hearing. This prompted the following outburst:

Q. Right, so you lied because you’ve always remembered that – You were just not truthful. Right?

A. Well, it could also be the fact that -- and let me be clear with this as well – I’m going to take a moment, Your Honour, to explain this. There is no way that anyone can prepare you to be in this situation and to come to a courtroom as a tax paying citizen…

A. And I’m trying to answer [your question] as to what there was this mishap. That day, when I came as an ordinary tax paying citizen, there is absolutely no way that you are even prepared for the court, the system. It’s overwhelming. Did I say that? Yes, I said it. Was it incorrect? Yes, it was incorrect. Did I lie on purpose? I’m going to tell you that I was incredibly overwhelmed. I was incredibly discombobulated with – I was overwhelmed. Now you want to call me a liar about that? Fine. But what I’m going to say to you is in the moment, in the heat of the moment, I did not recall it because I was a little overwhelmed. That’s all I’m saying.

Q. So what I’m suggesting to you, Ms. [J], is not only did you recall it, you deliberately lied under oath at the preliminary inquiry. You knew the truth did you not?

A. At the time I didn’t recall it. And as you know, I do have glitches with my short term memory.⁶⁷

271Ms. Shemesh challenged J.J. on whether the time from the summer of 2024 (when she read the article) to April 2025 (when she testified at the preliminary hearing) could be a “short term memory” problem. J.J. insisted that this one-year period of time would be considered short term memory. I do not know where she learned that term, or if there is any medical evidence supporting it, but given the circumstances, I do not find this to be an adequate explanation.

272However, it does not seem to me that J.J. was deliberately lying at the preliminary hearing. The information about J.J. having read about another complainant saying Mr. Stronach punctured her pantyhose came directly from J.J. after she testified at the preliminary hearing. If she was deliberately lying at the preliminary hearing in order to prevent the suggestion that her evidence was tainted by what she read about someone else, she would not have provided this information in January 2026 prior to this trial.

273J.J. was also cross-examined about the type of pantyhose she was wearing, and in particular whether they had a cotton gusset. At the preliminary hearing, she had testified that she had no recollection whether the pantyhose she had been wearing that night had such a gusset. In cross-examination at trial, she was reminded of that answer and asked about whether her pantyhose could have had control top. She first agreed that she had no recollection, but then pointed out that she “[didn’t] even know if control top was around back then.” She was then asked if her pantyhose “had the padding on the inside where the crotch was,” to which she responded:

No. Pantyhose back then didn’t have cotton gussets. As a matter of fact, you just looked at them wrong and they disintegrated.⁶⁸

274Later in the cross-examination counsel again raised this issue and directly quoted to J.J. from her evidence at the preliminary inquiry when she said she did not recall if there was any padding. She replied that some do and some don’t, and then reverted to her position that she has no recollection today of whether her pantyhose had a gusset.

275Again, this is evidence that is problematic with respect to reliability. J.J. said at the preliminary hearing, and then later in cross-examination at trial, that she has no recollection as to what kind of pantyhose she was wearing. However, in her earlier cross-examination she volunteered that she did not believe control top pantyhose had been invented by then and that pantyhose with cotton gussets did not exist in the early 1980s. I know that these two answers are patently false – there was control top pantyhose in the early eighties and there was also pantyhose with cotton gussets and also pantyhose with a built-in panty that was heavier than the material in the legs, but not as thick as a control top. Not only do I know that for a fact from my own life experience, but the information is also readily ascertainable. J.J. ultimately returned to her initial position that she did not remember the nature of the pantyhose she was wearing. Nothing turns on whether the pantyhose had a cotton gusset or were completely sheer. J.J.’s testimony is that she does not remember. However, what I take from this evidence in cross-examination is her willingness to blurt out answers, under oath, without reflecting on their accuracy, particularly when she believes they may help buttress her evidence. There are other examples of this elsewhere in her evidence.

276On March 3, 2026, one of the first questions J.J. was asked in cross-examination was whether she had an opportunity to review her prior evidence and statement to the police. She agreed that on March 26 and April 7, 2025 (prior to the preliminary hearing) she had reviewed the video of her August 2, 2024 police statement. She also confirmed that in preparation for trial, on January 19, 2026, she had reviewed the video statement again, and also the transcripts of her testimony at the preliminary hearing. She was then asked whether January 19, 2026 was the last time she had ever seen those transcripts, and she replied, “Correct.” Due to information provided to the defence by the Crown as part of their ethical responsibility to the Court, Ms. Shemesh came to know that this was wrong. She therefore raised this issue again later that same day, March 3, 2026. The following exchange occurred:

Q. You saw your preliminary inquiry transcripts yesterday?

A. Yes. I don’t recall, but.

Q. Earlier when I asked you when was the last time you saw your preliminary hearing transcript you said January 19, 2026. That wasn’t true. You saw them yesterday. The Crown gave them to you yesterday.

A. Yes, they did.

Q. Why didn’t you say that?

A. I’m sorry. I’m not good with dates.⁶⁹

277When pressed about how “not being good with dates” could possibly be an explanation for one day ago, J.J. answered, “…it’s more of – how can I explain this? It’s like I thought everybody knew that I saw this yesterday.”⁷⁰

278I can see no reason why J.J. would deliberately misrepresent when she last reviewed her transcript. She blurted out two explanations: (1) she is not good with dates; and (2) she thought everybody already knew. Neither of these answers makes any sense. Possibly she just did not remember, which causes a concern about the reliability of her evidence overall, given that her purported memory of the events in question is the only evidence against the accused. Or perhaps, she simply blurted out an answer without any regard to its accuracy, which is also a concern for the reliability of her evidence.

279It now seems clear that J.J. sought and obtained legal advice before speaking to the police. However, her evidence on this was inconsistent on multiple occasions and in multiple ways. Initially, she completely denied it. Under cross-examination at the preliminary hearing on April 11, 2025, Ms. Shemesh asked J.J. if prior to contacting the police she had “any telephone calls or meetings with anyone else” and J.J. replied, “I did not.”⁷¹ However, Ms. Shemesh received disclosure of potentially contradictory information, which J.J. provided when she met with the police in advance of the preliminary hearing. Therefore, later in her cross-examination of J.J. that same day of the preliminary hearing, Ms. Shemesh returned to this issue. This time, J.J. was both evasive and untruthful. J.J. was asked if she had “spoken to anyone else about this matter other than the police or Crown counsel” and she said “No.” It was then suggested to her that she had in fact hired a civil lawyer. The following exchange occurred:

A. I have not hired civil counsel.

Q. Okay. Do you have a recollection of telling the police that you had a civil lawyer?

A. I do not have a civil lawyer.

Q. And that you had a meeting planned for March 30^th?

A. Yes.

Q. Okay.

A. But that was for advice.

Q. Okay. And I don’t want you to tell me what that advice is…

A. Yeah

Q…but the person that you got the advice from, is that a civil lawyer?

A. Yes it is.⁷²

280In her evidence-in-chief at the trial before me, J.J. gave dramatically different testimony. She said that she had “reached out to lawyers before going to the police.” When asked who those lawyers were, she responded that she was “not going to waive her privilege with any of these lawyers,” but then immediately volunteered:

So I’m – you know, there was one lawyer that is a civil lawyer, but that is not the only lawyer I’ve spoken to. I have spoken to many lawyers. And that’s because a person like me, running a multi-million-dollar business, needs legal advice. And I’m not waiving my privilege.⁷³

281Crown counsel then asked her if one of those lawyers was Michael Wilchesky⁷⁴ and J.J. confirmed that he was. She said she had met with him only once and that she did not retain him. When asked how many lawyers she met with prior to going to the police, she said “probably three or four.” The Crown then asked J.J. what her thought process was in consulting a lawyer before going to the police. J.J. replied:

Again, somebody like me needs legal advice…. I’m not some retired housewife, you know, and no, no disrespect to housewives or retired people. Please don’t take that out of context. But, you know, I’m incredibly active in my community. I’m well known. I’m interviewed a lot. I’m risking a lot just being here today. Like I don’t think that people understand the risk that I have. I have massive sponsors. You know [four large corporations named]. These are billion-dollar corporations. I have built this thing from nothing. And, you know, they don’t want to hear about this kind of stuff. They don’t want to hear about this stuff being messy. [The business I am in] it’s very male dominated. So I wouldn’t want to risk that. I wouldn’t want to risk the community looking at me differently. I’m not here – I don’t want to be known for this. I want to be known for what I did for the community. What I did for young people. That I’ve built an amazing platform for Canadian […] companies to talk to global investors. That’s what I want to be known for. Not for this. …So my speaking to lawyers is what should I do? Should I come forward? Should I not? What direction should I be taking?⁷⁵

282On cross-examination at trial, defence counsel put to J.J. that she had lied at the preliminary hearing about not having spoken to a lawyer prior to going to the police. She responded by stating that her understanding was that this was privileged information and she was under no obligation to disclose it. When pressed about her certain knowledge that the answer she gave, under oath, was not true, she stated:

But it is my business. It’s none of your business, which is what I thought was the correct answer. So that is why I did not say that I met with anybody because I thought it was privileged.⁷⁶

283In cross-examination, the day after she was examined-in-chief by the Crown, J.J. provided quite different information about the lawyers she had consulted and the nature of that contact. On March 2, in examination in chief, she had said she met with three or four lawyers. On March 3, under cross-examination, she said she did not meet with any lawyers. Rather she said she only spoke on the phone with Mr. Wilchesky on one occasion. She then objected to providing the names of the other lawyers she consulted, claiming privilege. That issue had been the subject of a motion by counsel prior to J.J. testifying. After hearing argument, I ruled that J.J. would be required to disclose the names of any lawyers she consulted. In my opinion, solicitor and client privilege protects the communications between a solicitor and client, not the identity of the lawyer. There can be situations in which the name of the lawyer or the nature of the communication, as opposed to the communication itself, might fall within the privilege. The situation before me is not one of those. As stated by Federal Court in M.N.R. v. Revcon Oilfield Constructors Incorporated:

…The idea that the identity of a law firm or lawyer retained by a client to provide tax planning advice is privileged finds no support in the law. It does not matter whether the law firm was retained “indirectly” by another firm directly retained by the client. A communication revealing the name of a law firm or lawyer – without anything else, such as actual legal advice – is not a confidential communication made for the purpose of receiving legal advice from a lawyer acting in a legal capacity. The name of a law firm, without more, is not protected by solicitor-client privilege.⁷⁷

284Accordingly, I directed J.J. that she was required to provide the names of any lawyers consulted. She then said she had spoken on the phone with one other lawyer (whose name she provided) and who was a civil lawyer with a specialty in sexual assault claims. She said she had called some other lawyers and left messages, but they had not returned her calls, and she could not remember their names.

285J.J. was absolutely entitled to speak to a lawyer before contacting the police. Indeed, I think it was wise of her to do so. Nothing about who she consulted, or why she did, has any impact on my findings in this case. However, her obfuscation about this issue is troubling. Perhaps she did not fully understand the principles underlying solicitor and client privilege. That would not be surprising, particularly for a layperson. However, I do find it surprising that she thought the way to assert that privilege was to simply lie under oath and pretend the consultations had never happened. Further, although she initially said she met with three or four lawyers to discuss this, she later changed that to not having met with any lawyers at all, but merely talking to two of them on the phone. I find it difficult to reconcile that she cannot keep straight how many lawyers she contacted and how she communicated with them after the lapse of only a year or two, but purports to remember word for word everything said and done by Mr. Stronach in that apartment over 40 years ago.

(j) Possible Tainting and Collusion

286For the reasons below, I find that J.J. and her friend, C., likely colluded by rehearsing their evidence to tell one consistent story.

287After first learning about the sexual assault charges against Mr. Stronach in June 2024 and the police plea for other victims to come forward, J.J. waited two months before contacting the police. J.J. testified about spending that time deciding whether or not to disclose to the police what happened to her. I appreciate that this was an important decision, and understand the real difficulties involved. As I have already stated, it was perfectly reasonable for her to seek legal advice before making that decision, although I think she exaggerated the extent of that consultation in her examination-in-chief, and ultimately took the position that two phone calls was the full extent of the consultation. However, it is problematic that she deliberately went online to research what other complainants were saying about Mr. Stronach. From those accounts, she took that Rooney’s played a role in where Mr. Stronach found his victims, and also the role of the apartment on the Harbourfront. She also obtained information about Mr. Stronach tearing a hole in a complainant’s pantyhose to get access to her vagina. There is a real danger that the information acquired in this manner tainted J.J.’s memory of what happened to her, whether deliberately or unconsciously.

288I have further concerns about actual collusion between J.J. and her friend and business colleague, C. (“C”). Both J.J. and C testified that they were at breakfast at a trade show in Quebec on June 4, 2024 when C asked J.J. if she had seen the news about Frank Stronach being charged with sexual assault. This is the first time J.J. learned of the charges.

289Later, J.J. contacted the police and was asked to come to Mississauga to give a statement. She went to the meeting with the police along with her friend C for company and moral support. C waited in a different room in the police station while J.J. gave her statement. In her interview, J.J. told the police about C sharing the news about Mr. Stronach, and also told them that she had previously told C about an “altercation” with a person she did not name. She said this had occurred “5, 6, 10” years earlier. She did not say anything about that conversation coming up while they were watching a television show or reading an article about date rape. She said that the word “rape” was never used.

290After interviewing J.J., the police asked C if she also would give a statement, which she agreed to do. C had no idea she would be giving a statement to the police until that very moment. She told the police that the first “disclosure” had been about 10 years earlier. They had been at a trade show together and one evening, while in the hotel room, C mentioned to J.J. an article she was reading about date rape. She told the police that J.J. then said that something like that had happened to her and then commented on the term “date rape” and said, “Is that what they are calling it now?” C. then replied, “That’s what they are calling it, yes.”

291The two women then got into the same car and drove back to Toronto together. When asked what was discussed during that return drive, C testified that J.J. did not give her any details about her statement. She said they discussed being curious about why the police in Peel were dealing with this given that the assault happened in Toronto. She was very clear that they did not discuss what either of them told the police in their statements.

292Initially at trial J.J. said the same thing – that she and C did not talk about the “nitty gritty” details of the case while on their return trip, and did not discuss what each of them had told the police. In cross-examination, she was referred to her testimony at the preliminary hearing, where it was suggested to her that she and C did talk about their statements on the drive back from the police station, and she agreed that was true, as follows:

Q. Okay. And I take it no doubt you are talking about this investigation, what was asked, what did you say, what do you remember, what do I remember, right?

A. Yes.

Q. No doubt that would have happened in the car, right?

A. Yes.⁷⁸

293J.J. was then asked if that refreshed her memory, to which she replied, “Yes, it does. It helps me refresh my memory… but I’m going to say to you, we also talked about other items. This was not the only thing we talked about.” She then said the main topic of conversation was their surprise that the case was being prosecuted in Peel rather than Toronto where the assault occurred.

294During cross-examination of C, Ms. Shemesh told her that J.J. had admitted that during that drive back from the police station, she and C had discussed what they each said in their statements. However, C stuck to her previous evidence and said this was not her recollection of what was discussed in the car.

295Although J.J. did not tell the police anything about being in a hotel room and watching a TV show about date rape, she did provide that detail at the preliminary hearing. This would have been about eight months after discussing with C what she told the police on their drive back to Toronto after giving their statements. Although telling the police she had only told C about an “altercation” and that the word “rape” had not been used, she now recalled that it was a show about date rape, that she told C while watching the show that this had happened to her, and C responded, “Oh, is that what they are calling it now.” She also confirmed in her evidence that this discussion would have occurred seven years earlier.

296This new version told by J.J. at the preliminary hearing has considerable similarity to what C told the police, except that C said it was 10 years before and it was an article she had been reading (not a television show). C testified before me at trial on May 4, 2026, immediately following the completion of J.J.’s testimony. C had come into the courthouse earlier that morning to review her police statement before testifying. She had not been a witness at the preliminary hearing. After reviewing the transcript of her police statement, she stated that she had some points of clarification, two of which were: (1) she now believed this initial disclosure was 7-10 years earlier; and (2) she remembered that it might not have been an article that she read about date rape, it could also have been something on the TV or her iPad. With those two “corrections” by her, their two versions were now almost exactly aligned, although C maintained that it was J.J. who asked the question, “Is that what they are calling it now?”

297I can see no reason why J.J. would have admitted at the preliminary hearing that she and C had compared notes about what they told the police unless that was true. I believe that happened. It also explains why J.J.’s evidence about the initial discussion she had with C was so different from what C told the police in her statement. It appears to me that J.J. then provided a new version at the preliminary hearing, which she intended to align with what C told the police. Where J.J. got some of those details wrong, C then corrected just before testifying at trial. In my view, this demonstrates two things: (1) both women were prepared to rehearse their evidence so as to give one consistent story at trial; and (2) J.J. does have a poor memory and gets details confused. This undermines the veracity of both women, and underscores J.J.’s poor memory and inability to keep her story straight.

298Both J.J. and C provided consistent evidence about what was said in Quebec in June 2024 when C first told J.J. about the charges against Frank Stronach. C testified that J.J. responded by saying, “It’s him. It’s him, C. It’s him.” She recounted that “all the blood drained out of her face.” She said that J.J. stood up and then sat down again and her face was white. C testified that it was then that she realized that J.J. was referring back to the date rape incident they had discussed years earlier. C also remembered J.J. saying, “I’m not the only one” and that there was some connection with Rooney’s restaurant in Toronto. J.J. also told her it happened in Toronto when she was in her twenties. She said that J.J. did not tell her any further details. The detail about Rooney’s is something C had not told the police initially, but disclosed immediately after reading the transcript of her police interview just before she testified at trial. In cross-examination, C was referred to her police statement. Not only had she not said anything about Rooney’s or Toronto, but when the police asked her if she knew the location of anything associated with this incident or where it happened, she told them she did not.

299J.J. gave a remarkably similar version of this event. She said that she was sitting down when C told her about the charges against Mr. Stronach. She said that she stood up and said, “It’s him. It’s him. It’s him.” She also said she thought to herself, “Oh my God, I’m not the only one.” Although J.J. testified she did not say that out loud, apparently somehow her friend C heard it. J.J. then said, that she was so shocked that “the blood just literally drained from my face.” I am not sure how J.J. would know that the “blood just literally drained from [her] face” unless someone who could actually see it (e.g. C) told her that was the case. In re-examination, J.J. reiterated that she kept saying to C, “That’s him. That’s him. Oh my God. That’s him. It’s him.” until she saw “the light went on” and [C] said ‘Oh my God. That’s him from that night years ago when we talked about’ – I said, yes, it’s him. He raped me when I was in my twenties.”⁷⁹

300These two versions are remarkably similar. More to the point, they were not quite as similar at the time of their police statements, but have been modified over time to become virtually identical. I do not doubt that J.J. found out about the charges from her friend C who read about them from a news article on her phone. There was also a likely disclosure about date rape some time before that without mentioning Mr. Stronach. C had no idea she would be interviewed by the police that day and she provided that information from her own memory. It did not initially match J.J.’s version of the event, but J.J. later made it her own (although changing it to a discussion arising from a television show rather than an article that C had read).

301There was one area in which the evidence of these two women strongly differed. J.J. testified that C was an avid fan of horse racing and knew about Frank Stronach’s involvement in that. She said that C “followed” Mr. Stronach’s horse racing activities and would frequently mention his name. C strongly disagreed. She said that as a young child she would go to Woodbine with her family, but that she never went to horse races as an adult. She would follow horse racing only to the extent of watching major races on television. She denied ever mentioning Frank Stronach to J.J. prior to June 2024, which was when she read the article about him being charged and told J.J. about it.

302I find on this evidence that these two women consulted with each other to ensure that their evidence aligned. The one area of difference is likely something that simply was not discussed between them before they testified. It does not reassure me that they did not consult with one another about the substance of the evidence they would be giving at trial. Again, this demonstrates their dishonesty and willingness to collude, as well as J.J.’s poor memory in terms of keeping her story straight. It also undermines J.J.’s overall credibility.

(k) Motive to Fabricate

303I cannot rule out the possibility that J.J. had a financial motive to fabricate these allegations against Mr. Stronach, however I do not believe it is J.J.’s prime motive.

304Mr. Stronach is a wealthy man. Despite J.J.’s frequent references to her achievements and her multi-million-dollar companies, it became clear in cross-examination that much of this was embellished and that she earns only $60,000 a year from these businesses.

305J.J. has consulted civil lawyers and testified that she has not yet decided whether she will sue Mr. Stronach for damages. That is absolutely her right and does not mean her evidence was fabricated. However, while maintaining that it was “not about the money”, J.J. made an odd statement that bringing a civil action was more about ensuring she is not forgotten by his estate. She said she did “not care if it’s 5¢ or 5$”, but rather that “every time that ledger is open, they’re going to see my name for 5¢ and I’m happy with that…It’s about not being forgotten.”⁸⁰

306J.J. was also asked in cross-examination about a comment she made to the police to the effect that she would be interested to see the corporate records for Magna to know how many people had been paid off and entered into non-disclosure agreements. J.J. explained that this was because she was interested in who was enabling Mr. Stronach in this conduct and for how long. She testified that if she was in law enforcement, that is what she would be looking for, which is indeed the context in which she raised it with the police.

307Although I cannot rule out the possibility of financial motivation, I do not believe it to be the prime reason for J.J. making these accusations against Mr. Stronach.

(l) Absence of Foreplay

308J.J. commented at one point in her testimony that Mr. Stronach was a sloppy kisser and that the mutual kissing between them was “not enjoyable.” She also complained about him ripping her pantyhose rather than giving her the opportunity to get off the bed and remove them herself. She told the police, and testified at the preliminary hearing, and at the trial before me, that he had no interest in foreplay. He was, for example, not interested at all in her breasts. She also clarified, “When I said he’s clearly not interested in foreplay, I wasn’t interested either. It is a point I am making that he is going straight for it.” She said, “This was not a romantical interlude.”⁸¹

(iii) Conclusions re Charges Involving J.J.

309The burden is on the Crown to prove this charge beyond a reasonable doubt. That burden includes proof of the factual allegations, i.e. the sexual act and the absence of consent. There is a difficult legal issue that could arise here because of the impossibility of tying down the year in which this alleged event occurred. That makes a difference as to whether the offence is assault, sexual assault, or rape. However, it is not necessary for me to resolve this legal issue, as lack of consent is an essential element of any of the applicable offences, and I find the Crown has failed to establish this essential element beyond a reasonable doubt.

310I have no difficulty with the late disclosure by J.J. It is by no means uncommon for women who have been sexually assaulted to say nothing at all about it to anyone for many years, much less approaching the police to lay charges. There is nothing about the circumstances of the disclosure in this case that, in and of itself, gives rise to a reasonable doubt about the truthfulness of the allegations. That said, the passage of over 40 years before anything is disclosed is a difficult hurdle in terms of the Crown’s ability to present evidence that can satisfy the heavy burden of proof. Although it is understandable, indeed inevitable, that memories fade over time, particularly decades of time, the burden of proof remains proof beyond a reasonable doubt.

311The only evidence supporting the charge against Mr. Stronach comes from J.J. herself. Everything depends on the extent to which I can rely on her testimony as being both reliable and credible. J.J.’s testimony was fraught with difficulty. At times, she gave false evidence under oath. Sometimes she did this because she answered quickly without reflection. For example, she agreed in her evidence on March 3 that the last time she had reviewed the transcript of her preliminary testimony was in January 2026, when in fact she had read it on March 2, immediately before starting her evidence at trial and after having herself requested it from the Crown for this purpose. When caught in that falsehood (only because the Crown disclosed it to the defence), she then immediately gave two nonsensical explanations: (1) she’s not good with dates; and (2) she thought everyone already knew that she had reviewed the transcript the day before. Other times, the falsehood was not simply blurting out an answer, but deliberately lying. One example is her initial position in cross-examination that she and C had not discussed their police statements during the drive home from the police station, when they clearly had, and which she had already admitted to doing at the preliminary hearing, and subsequently agreed was correct. Another example is her evidence at the preliminary hearing that she had not spoken to anybody about these allegations before providing her statement to police, which was patently untrue. I do not accept her testimony that she legitimately believed this to be an acceptable answer because of solicitor and client privilege. More importantly, her evidence about the ripped pantyhose goes to the core of her allegation of sexual assault, and she gave conflicting evidence about whether she already knew about L.S.’s similar allegations about pantyhose being ripped. Either because her memory is so poor, or because she thought she could lie without being caught, she testified at trial that she had not read any media accounts about the allegation made by L.S. that Mr. Stronach had torn a hole in her pantyhose, when she very clearly had read about that detail before going to the police.

312Quite apart from credibility issues, the most serious problem with J.J.’s evidence is whether her memory of these events from over 40 years ago is reliable. It is difficult to discern how much of J.J.’s evidence comes from real memories of a sexual encounter with Mr. Stronach in his apartment when she was in her twenties, and how much of it comes from imagined details she has morphed over the years, or reconstructed for purposes of her report to police. She had a surprisingly bad memory for things that she said or did one or two years ago, and also from the alleged first disclosure to C, which was perhaps 7-10 years ago. Even if this is due to her brain injury from her car accident six years ago, it relates to the events that occurred over 40 years ago, which seriously undermines the reliability of her evidence. Which version is accurate – what she said 38 years after the fact, 39 years after the fact, or 40 years after the fact? There is no way for me to know if any of these versions are accurate.

313Some of these are about peripheral issues, but others go directly to the issue of consent. J.J. testified under oath at the preliminary hearing about consensual kissing, touching, and nuzzling on the couch before she made any objection. However, at trial she said that she said “No” immediately after the first time he tried to kiss her. None of her evidence about what happened on the couch is reliable, including the nature of their interactions and when, if ever, she said “No” during that encounter. Likewise, her evidence about dragging her heels while being taken by the hand to the bedroom was so demonstrably impossible that J.J. herself insisted that she must have been taken to a different apartment, which is a suggestion I reject. Either she is lying, or her memory of the manner in which she got from the living room to the bedroom is incorrect.

314J.J. acknowledged that apart from the dragging of the feet and her “internal” eye rolling as she was going to the bedroom hand in hand with Mr. Stronach, she gave no indication that she was not consenting. She then engaged in a consensual “make out session” (her words) on the bed. She testified that when he began to put his hand up her leg she said, “I’m not here for that.” How is that statement, and its timing, any more reliable than her evidence about what happened on the couch? It is not.

315Her evidence about the pantyhose being ripped appears compelling at first blush, but her memory may be tainted by what she read about the allegations made by L.S. about her pantyhose being ripped in a similar manner. Further, J.J. either lied about or forgot that she read about these allegations by L.S., and she also either embellished or lied about her memory of the nature of the crotch in the pantyhose she was wearing (which she may have thought would lend credence to her evidence about them being shredded). Other purportedly clear memories turned out to be inaccurate (e.g. reluctantly dragging her feet on the way to the bedroom and her detailed description of Mr. Stronach’s sexy low-slung German sportscar.) She recounted many circumstances of things she was saying to herself, as opposed to things she said aloud. There is at least one example of something she claimed to be saying to herself (“I’m not the only one”), after hearing about the charges against Mr. Stronach, but which her friend C claims to have heard her say out loud. I have no confidence as to the reliability of her memory about what she said out loud to Mr. Stronach at the point she alleges she was raped, as opposed to what she only said to herself. In particular, I cannot be satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt that she ever said “No” or “I’m not here for that” before he penetrated her. I also cannot be satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt that her stated “pretending to go along” with the make out session on the bed ever stopped or if her conduct of participating herself in the “make out” session continued through the very brief period of intercourse. It could be true. It might have happened that way. But I really do not know if it did. I am not able to conclude from J.J.’s evidence that the events of that night unfolded in the way she described in her evidence, nor in the way she may remember it in her mind.

316I was not referred to, and am not aware of, any reported decision in which the accused did not testify and nevertheless was acquitted based on the accused’s honest but mistaken belief in consent. There are certainly cases that allow for that possibility, but it would be a rare case where that could be established without some evidence from the accused. However, this concept is not actually a defence, but rather another way of describing the Crown’s onus of proving mens rea. The Crown must prove that the accused knew there was no consent and proceeded anyway, which is typically a simple logical inference based on accepting the evidence of the complainant. In this case, I cannot make a finding that J.J. ever said “No” to Mr. Stronach, and I cannot determine when she stopped actively participating in what she described as a make out session. J.J.’s own evidence was that after penetration, she simply lay there. I appreciate that silence is not consent, but given her own participation up to that point, I am not able to determine any point at which Mr. Stronach must have known she was not consenting. It may be that in her own mind, J.J. did not want to have sex with Mr. Stronach, but if she was engaging, even if in her mind to placate him and “get it over with”, and there are no alleged threats, it is impossible to know at what point, if any, he can be fixed with knowledge that she was not consenting. To be clear, I am not making a positive finding that J.J. consented, nor am I making a positive finding that Mr. Stronach honestly believed that she was consenting. However, given the frailties of J.J.’s testimony, the Crown has failed in its burden to establish beyond a reasonable doubt that Mr. Stronach proceeded with this sexual act with knowledge that J.J. was not consenting. I note, in this regard, J.J.’s evidence that after she had cleaned herself up in the bathroom, she returned to the couch and sat beside Mr. Stronach sobbing uncontrollably. She testified that he stared at her and seemed confused by her reaction.

317That said, I do not believe J.J. simply invented this story, as suggested at one point by the defence. I believe there are some elements of truth in much of what she recounted in her evidence. For example, I believe she had dinner with Mr. Stronach and later went to his apartment, where things became sexual soon after they arrived. What I am unable to be sure of is what happened after that and whether she consented to all of it, or merely some of it. It is possible that the essence of her evidence about Mr. Stronach forcibly having vaginal intercourse with her knowing that she was not consenting is true. However, it is also possible that nothing happened without her consent, but that she felt used and demeaned in some way. That could explain her comments about this not being romantic, Mr. Stronach being a “sloppy kisser”, that he was not interested in her breasts or any form of foreplay, and that he was only there for one thing (his own gratification). It is also possible that she went along with everything Mr. Stronach did, and actively participated in it, without ever objecting by word or action until it was over, but while still feeling reluctant, or even revulsed. It is even possible that she consented fully to everything that happened without any reservations on her part until later. I cannot tell. Her previous statement to the police and at the preliminary hearing to engaging in consensual kissing on the couch and then not remembering having said that when testifying at trial less than a year later, causes me to lose confidence in whether she has a reliable memory of what happened in that apartment 45 years ago. While there are also some credibility issues, it is the reliability of her evidence that causes me the greatest concern. Her resentment may have coloured her memory of the past events, or she may have deliberately coloured the events for revenge or a financial motive. Or she may simply have an incomplete memory of the events and filled in the details inaccurately. I make no finding one way or the other. Whatever the reason, the weaknesses in J.J.’s evidence about those events 45 years ago prevent me from being satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt that there was an absence of consent or that the accused knew or was reckless to there being an absence of consent. The essential elements of the offence have not been established to the requisite criminal standard. Therefore, I must find Mr. Stronach not guilty on Counts 9, 10, and 11.

I. CONCLUSION

318Counts 1 and 2 relate to the complainant L.S., who maintained that she had been a horse groom at Mr. Stronach’s home barn. Count 1 alleges that Mr. Stronach raped L.S. at his condo on the waterfront in 1980 or 1981 and Count 2 alleges an indecent assault on the dance floor at Rooney’s some hours prior to the rape.

Verdict: Not Guilty on Counts 1 and 2.

319Counts 3 and 4 charge Mr. Stronach with forcible confinement and sexual assault, involving the complainant B.T. She alleged that she met Mr. Stronach at Rooney’s on Valentine’s Day in 1986. She said he bought her drinks and offered to drive her home, which she accepted. However, she testified that instead of taking her home, he took her to his condo on the waterfront and had forced non-consensual intercourse with her. The Crown conceded these charges were not proven.

Verdict: Not Guilty on Counts 3 and 4.

320Counts 5 and 6 occurred between 1977 and 1978. The complainant, V.T. was a legal secretary who knew Mr. Stronach through meeting him at Rooney’s. After dinner there, she agreed to go a nearby apartment with him. He came up from behind her, flipped her forwards over the upholstered arm of a chair, lifted her skirt, and ground his groin into her pelvic area over her panties. There is no evidence that he took his penis out of his pants. At law, this cannot be attempted rape, as alleged in Count 5, but is indecent assault under Count 6.

Verdict: Not Guilty on Count 5; Guilty of Indecent Assault under Count 6.

321Count 7 is an allegation that Mr. Stronach sexually assaulted a summer student, N.J., in the summer of 1983. The Crown conceded this charge was not proven.

Verdict: Not Guilty on Count 7.

322Count 8 alleges Mr. Stronach sexually assaulted V.D. in a hotel room in the fall of 1990. The Crown conceded this charge was not proven.

Verdict: Not Guilty on Count 8.

323Counts 9, 10, and 11 all relate to J.J. (a former secretary and now independent businesswoman). Mr. Stronach met her at Rooney’s and subsequently took her out on a dinner date. After dinner, they went to his waterfront condo, where J.J. alleged he had forced non-consensual intercourse with her. Because she was not sure of the year and legislative amendments occurred within the range of possible dates, charges relevant to both regimes are included in these counts. However, I determined that the Crown had failed to prove the essential element of the absence of consent, so it was not necessary to prove which regime applied.

Verdict: Not Guilty on Counts 9, 10, and 11.

324Count 12 charges Mr. Stronach with sexually assaulting A.S. in 1983 or 1984. She had been a waitress at Rooney’s and turned to Mr. Stronach for help when she was fired. He took her out for dinner and afterwards to his nearby condo on the waterfront. She became uneasy and said she wanted to leave. While he was helping her on with her coat near the door, Mr. Stronach ran his hands up and down along her breasts and hips without her consent.

Verdict: Guilty of Sexual Assault under Count 12.

325This was a long and emotionally charged trial. I am indebted to all counsel for their thorough preparation (which made my task far easier), their reasonable resolution of things that should be conceded, and their professionalism throughout.

Footnotes

1. 1R. v. Stronach #1, 2025 ONSC 6653 (certiorari); Stronach #2, 2025 ONSC 6790 (s. 276 and 278 Applications- Not Available to the Public); Stronach #3, 2025, ONSC 6791 (Statements Made in the Media-Stage One).
2. 2R. v. D.D., 2000 SCC 43, [2000] 2 S.C.R. 275, at para. 65.
3. 3R. v. Gerrard, 2022 SCC 13, [2022] 1 S.C.R. 279, at paras. 4-5; R. v. Batte (2000), 2000 CanLII 5751 (ON CA), 49 O.R. (3d) 321 (C.A.) at para. 120; R. v. L.L., 2009 ONCA 413, 96 O.R. (3d) 412, at paras. 44-45 and 53; R. v. R.K., 2023 ONCA 653 at paras. 46-51.
4. 4R. v. D.D., at para. 63; R. v. Hoggard, 2024 ONCA 613, 173 O.R. (3d) 721, at para. 26; R. v. Nygard¸2026 ONCA 345.
5. 5R. v. Ewanchuk, [1999] 1 S.C.R. 131, at paras. 29-30.
6. 6Ewanchuk, at para. 42.
7. 7Ewanchuk, at para. 51.
8. 8Ewanchuk, at para. 52.
9. 9R. v. Robertson, 1987 CanLII 61 (SCC), [1987] 1 S.C.R. 918 at para. 26.
10. 10R v. Cunningham, 2017 ABCA 169, 52 Alta L.R. (6th) 263, at para. 7, citing R. v. Ewanchuk, 1999 CanLII 711 (SCC), [1999] 1 S.C.R. 330 (S.C.C.), at para. 44.
11. 11R. v. Handy, 2002 SCC 56, [2002] 2 S.C.R. 908, at para. 134.
12. 12R. v. Polemidiotis, 2024 ONCA 905, 174 O.R. (3d) 359, at paras. 19 and 23.
13. 13Handy, at para. 31.
14. 14Handy, at para. 41.
15. 15R. v. Shearing, 2002 SCC 58, 2022 SCC 58, [2002] 3 S.C.R. 33, at para. 31.
16. 16Handy, at para. 73.
17. 17R. v. Arp, 1998 CanLII 769 (SCC), [1998] 3 S.C.R. 339, at para. 44.
18. 18R. v. Arp, 1998 CanLII 769 (SCC), [1998] 3 S.C.R. 339, at paras. 44-45.
19. 19Handy, at para. 110.
20. 20Ibid, para. 112.
21. 21R. v. Khelawoni, 2006 SCC 57, [2006] 2 S.C.R. 787, at para. 7.
22. 22R. v. Nyznik, 2017 ONSC 4392, 40 C.R. (7th) 241, at para. 17.
23. 23Transcript at Trial, February 12, 2026, p. 75.
24. 24Transcript at Trial, February 13, 2026, at p. 147.
25. 25Transcript at Trial, February 12, 2026, pp. 31-32.
26. 26Transcript at Trial, February 13, 2026, at pp. 123-124.
27. 27Transcript at Trial, February 12, 2026, at p. 130.
28. 28Transcript at Trial, February 13, 2026, at pp. 9-11.
29. 29Transcript, February 12, 2026, p. 123.
30. 30Transcript at Trial, February 12, 2026, at p. 140.
31. 31Transcript at Trial, February 12, 2026, at pp. 50-51.
32. 32Ibid, at p. 40.
33. 33Transcript at Trial, February 12, 2026, at p. 49-50.
34. 34Ibid, at p. 52.
35. 35Transcript at Trial, February 12, 2026, at p. 56.
36. 36Section 144 of the Criminal Code, R.S.C. 1970, c. C-34, as it was at the time.
37. 37Transcript February 12, at pp. 140-141.
38. 38Transcript, February 13, 2026, pp. 148-149.
39. 39Ibid, at para. 150.
40. 40Handy, at para. 134.
41. 41Transcript at Trial, February 18, 2026, at p. 122.
42. 42Ibid, at p. 89.
43. 43Ibid, at p. 19.
44. 44Transcript at Trial, February 18, 2026, at p. 55.
45. 45Transcript at Trial, February 17, 2026, at p. 170.
46. 46Ibid, at p. 169.
47. 47Ibid, at p. 52.
48. 48Transcript at Trial, March 9, 2026, at p. 150.
49. 49Transcript at Trial, February 17, 2026, at p. 79.
50. 50Transcript at Trial, March 2, 2026, at p. 33.
51. 51Transcript at Trial, March 2, 2026, p. 39.
52. 52Ibid, p. 42.
53. 53Ibid, at p. 45.
54. 54Transcript at Trial, p. 47.
55. 55Ibid, at p. 55.
56. 56Transcript at Trial, March 2, 2026, at p. 63.
57. 57Ibid, at pp. 62-63.
58. 58Transcript at Trial, March 2, 2026, at pp. 74-75.
59. 59R. v. N.S., 2012 SCC 72, [2012] 3 S.C.R. 726, at para. 99.
60. 60Transcript at Trial, March 3, 2026, at p. 94.
61. 61Ibid, at pp. 99-100.
62. 62Ibid, p. 100.
63. 63Transcript at Trial, March 3, 2026, at p.106.
64. 64Transcript at Trial, March 3, 2026 at p.132, referring to Preliminary Hearing Transcript April 11, p. 130, line 27.
65. 65Ibid.
66. 66Transcript at Trial, March 3, 2026, at pp. 37-38, quoting Preliminary Hearing Transcript, April 14, 2025 at pp. 14-15.
67. 67Transcript at Trial, March 3, 2026, at pp. 39-40.
68. 68Transcript at Trial, March 3, 2026, at p. 136.
69. 69Transcript at Trial, March 3, 2026, at p. 137-138.
70. 70Ibid, at p. 138.
71. 71Transcript at Preliminary Hearing, April 11, 2025, at pp. 77-78.
72. 72Transcript at Preliminary Inquiry, at pp. 138-139.
73. 73Transcript at Trial, March 2, 2026, at pp. 73.
74. 74This was relevant because Mr. Wilchesky was already the lawyer for Ms. Boon and L.S. and had spoken to the Toronto Star about attracting others to join the group.
75. 75Transcript at Trial, March 2, 2026, at pp. 74-75.
76. 76Transcript at Trial, March 3, 2026, at p. 53.
77. 77Canada (M.N.R.) v. Revcon Oilfield Constructors Incorporated, 2015 FC 524 at para. 25.
78. 78Transcript at Trial, March 4, 2026, pp. 13-14.
79. 79Transcript at Trial, March 4, 2026, at p. 53.
80. 80Transcript at Trial, March 3, 2026 at pp. 163-164.
81. 81Ibid, at p. 127.