SUPERIOR COURT OF JUSTICE - ONTARIO
RE: THE ATTORNEY GENERAL OF CANADA ON BEHALF OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Applicant
– and –
HARDEEP RATTE and GURPREET SINGH, Respondents/Persons sought for extradition
BEFORE: Justice E.M. Morgan
COUNSEL: Kandia Aird and Adrienne Rice, for the Attorney General of Canada
Ravin Pillay, for Hardeep Ratte
Brian Greenspan and Naomi Lutes, for Gurpreet Singh
HEARD: May 20, 2026
FURTHER and Amended DISCLOSURE APPLICATIONs
1Each party has brought an Application addressing further issues flowing from a disclosure Order that I have previously made in this extradition proceeding. The disclosure issue arises in the context of extradition proceedings in which the United States seeks the committal into custody of Hardeep Ratte (“Ratte”) and Gurpreet Singh (“Singh) on charges of conspiracy to transport cocaine from Los Angeles into Canada for a drug trafficking organization.
2On November 21, 2025, I granted an Application requiring the Attorney General of Canada (“AGC”) to produce certain materials referenced in the Second Revised Record of the Case (“SRROC”): USA v. Ratte and Singh, 2025 ONSC 6502.
3Those materials included, inter alia, a copy of the Information to Obtain (“ITO”) pursuant to which an authorization to intercept communications under section 184.2 of the Criminal Code was issued by the Superior Court of Quebec. Acting on that authorization, an unnamed confidential witness (“CW”) met in February 2024 with Ratte and Singh in Brampton, Ontario in a meeting monitored by RCMP Staff Sgt. Stephen MacQueen, and made audio and video recordings of the conversations that took place there. My disclosure order also required the AGC to produce the recordings of those meetings and to identify the CW and explain what has become of him unless there are realistic safety concerns for not doing so.
4The AGC has produced some, but not all, of the materials required by my November 2025 ruling. The ITO has been produced in heavily redacted form. The audio/video recordings of the Brampton meeting have not been produced, and no information about the identity or circumstances of the CW has been forthcoming.
5In view of what they say are the shortcomings in the AGC’s productions, Ratte and Singh have both brought follow-up Applications seeking further production. More precisely, their new Application seeks an Order specifically reiterating the requirement that the AGC produce the information and materials – or, with respect to the redacted ITO, a judicial summary if appropriate – that they were previously ordered to produce.
6The AGC has also brought a new Application. In it, the AGC’s counsel have produced a form of Consent signed by the CW (with his name redacted) in which he agreed to make the recordings of his meetings with Ratte and Singh in Brampton. They have also produced the affidavit of RCMP Cpl. (now Sgt.) Johnathan Hachey dated February 21, 2024 that supported the Quebec authorization, as well as a new written statement signed (but not sworn) by Sgt. Hachey in which he explains that the numerous redactions in the ITO reflect his concerns with respect to safety issues and public interest privilege regarding an ongoing investigation.
7In view of what they say are the new additions to the evidentiary record, the AGC has brought a follow-up Application seeking to amend my November 21, 2025 ruling to dispense with the requirement to produce copies of the video and audio recordings made by the CW during his Brampton meeting with Ratte and Singh. Counsel for the AGC submit that the CW’s one-party consent to make the recordings – his “participant surveillance”, as it is called – is itself a valid authorization for making them, thereby countering any suggestion that they may not have been in compliance with Canadian law.
8In addition, Sgt. Hachey has explained in his newly submitted statement that certain of the redactions in the ITO have been made to protect the identity of the CW out of legitimate safety concerns and the need to protect an ongoing investigation. Counsel for the AGC explain that the pool of individuals who had access to the other players in the drug trafficking conspiracy in which Ratte and Singh are alleged to have played a part is rather small, and details about the CW’s engagement with those other suspects could easily identify him and endanger either him (if he is alive) or those close to him.
9I am prepared to accept for now the AGC’s submission, and Sgt. Hachey’s assessments, that the identity of the CW should not be revealed as that may prompt a pubic safety concern or may interfere with an ongoing criminal investigation. These concerns would place the information in the category of public interest privilege, rendering it inadmissible: R. v. Richards (1997), 34 OR (3d) 244 (CA).
10Ordinarily, delineating the contours of the asserted public interest privilege in which the CW’s identity is cloaked is a judicial function and is not for the police or the AGC to unilaterally determine: Weisbeck v. Regina (City), 2015 SKQB 145. However, under present circumstances I see no way for Sgt. Hachey to further demonstrate the need for keeping the CW’s identity out of the court record without delving into so many detailed facts about the CW and his involvement in this case as to all but make that very identification in the process. As AGC’s counsel said, the pool of players in this matter is rather small, and the more detail one discloses the more evident the identity of the players will become.
11I am satisfied that “the public interest in effective police investigation and the protection of the those involved in, or who assist in such investigation, outweigh the legitimate interests of the accused in disclosure of the [investigative] techniques”: Richards, supra. Where the safety of individuals and of the public at large is concerned, I prefer to lean to the side of caution: R. v. A.B., 2024 ONCA 111, at para. 28. The identity of the CW should therefore not be disclosed or made part of the publicly accessible record.
12I am also satisfied that withholding from the public record the name of the CW will not unduly prejudice Ratte and Singh in their response to the extradition application. The SRROC, at para. 29, contains the following description of how the alleged February 2024 meeting between the CW and Ratte and Singh transpired:
After seeing SINGH pick up the CW at the airport, Staff Sergeant MacQueen and other law enforcement authorities then followed SINGH’s vehicle, occupied by SINGH and the CW, to the vicinity of the Kolar Auto Collision Center – the ‘body shop’ referenced in the Threema messages between SINGH and the CW discussed above. At approximately 12:34 p.m., Staff Sergeant MacQueen saw SINGH and the CW arrive in the Black Cadillac Escalade and enter the Collision Center. Staff Sergeant MacQueen saw a white Cadillac Escalade (the “white Escalade”) parked on the street outside the Collision Center. The CW relayed to law enforcement 8 authorities that SINGH identified the white Escalade as RATTE’s car.
13The general public may not know the CW’s identity. But Ratte and Singh presumably know who it was that held a private meeting with them at this specific auto body shop two years ago. They may not know the individual’s current whereabouts or what has become of him, but it is rather far-fetched to think that they do not know or cannot recall the third person at a three-person meeting in a unique location and under unique circumstances such as those described above. And since they will in likely know who he is, they are also likely to recall any conversations with him and to know the extent of his involvement with them. Providing them with the CW’s name will add little to their preparation of a defense.
14Although I accept the AGC’s maintaining of confidentiality of the CW’s identity, I am not prepared to vary my Order of November 21, 2025 requiring production of “All audio and video recordings made during CW’s visit to Canada including those made on February 22nd 2024 when he allegedly met with Singh and Ratte”.
15The request to vary is based on the new evidence in the record. AGC’s counsel explains it at para. 12 of their Application Record:
- Based on the disclosure that has been provided to date and that has been placed on the record, this Court has the necessary information to scrutinize and satisfy itself that the statutory pre-conditions for the issuance of a s.184.2 consent authorization were met at the time Cpl. Hachey submitted his application to Justice Compagnone. The disclosure includes:
The s. 184.2 authorization which indicates that Justice Compagnone was satisfied that CW had consented to the interception;
Cpl. Hachey’s sworn affidavit of February 21, 2024 (Cpl. Hachey’s Affidavit), deposing to the name of the person who had consented to the interception in conformity with para 184.2(2)(c); and
CW’s signed consents appended to Cpl. Hachey’s Affidavit, which satisfied Justice Compagnone that para 184.2(3)(b) had been met, namely that the person who was intended by the originator of the private communication to receive it had consented to the interception.
16As for the AGC’s new evidence demonstrating the CW’s consent to the audio/video recordings, the evidence is “new” only in a very literal sense. The form of Consent signed by the CW, along with Sgt. Hachey’s affidavit attesting to the CW’s consent, are indeed new documents in the Application Record. But the information contained in them regarding the consensual nature of the CW’s participation in the recording of these communications is not new information. The SRROC is replete with references to the CW’s cooperation with both Canadian and American law enforcement. In other words, the evidence is new in form, but not in substance.
17More importantly, the CW’s consent does not in itself answer the question as to whether his recording of the meetings with Ratte and Singh were lawful under applicable Canadian legal principles. In R. v. Duarte, [1990] 1 SCR 30, the Supreme Court of Canada considered the legality of recorded conversations which, like here, were made by a cooperating witness working together with a supervising police officer:
A conversation with an informer does not amount to a search and seizure within the meaning of the Charter. Surreptitious electronic interception and recording of a private communication does. Such recording, moreover, should be viewed as a search and seizure in all circumstances save where all parties to the conversation have expressly consented to its being recorded. Accordingly, the constitutionality of ‘participant surveillance’ should fall to be determined by application of the same standard as that employed in third party surveillance, i.e., by application of the standard of reasonableness enunciated in Hunter v. Southam Inc., supra. By application of that standard, the warrantless participant surveillance engaged in by the police here was clearly unconstitutional. [Emphasis added]
18Establishing the CW’s consent to recording the conversations does not establish Charter compliance. Since 1990, it has been clear that Charter protections in this area exist to, among other things, “preclude the police from embarking on fishing expeditions in the hope of uncovering evidence of crime”: Ibid. This prohibition applies regardless of whether one of the participants in the recorded conversation consented to the recording.
19The new evidence relied on by the AGC is barely new and is not relevant to the inquiry at hand. It does not amount to a basis for amending or varying my previous production Order.
20I understand from Sgt. Hachey’s statement that the audio/video recordings are undergoing a review and redaction process to ensure public safety and to protect an ongoing criminal investigation. He indicates that the police need a bit more time to complete that process, and I am prepared to grant that extra time. He states that the police need 10 more days for their review; given other factors in the two Applications before me, I will extend that period to 30 days. Once the redacted or edited recordings are submitted to me, I will then review them and determine whether to revisit the redacting or to deliver them to counsel for Ratte and Singh.
21I now turn to the rather extensive redactions in the version of the ITO produced by the AGC pursuant to my November 2025 Order. These redactions are the primary focus of Ratte and Singh’s Application for further disclosure.
22As already indicated, I agree with the AGC and with Sgt. Hachey that redactions or edits in otherwise producible documents may be called for where matters of public safety and protection for an ongoing criminal investigation are concerned. However, I also agree with counsel for Ratte and Singh that the redactions in the ITO are so severe that much of it is indecipherable and makes its production pointless.
23Given the conflict between the right of Ratte and Singh to access the ITO under my previous Order and the obligation of the police to invoke public interest privilege where applicable, it is for me to determine the scope of that privilege and whether the redactions are necessary to protect it. As a first stage of the analysis, I will have to determine how much of the redacted material is truly relevant to the issues in this case: Richards, at para. 11.
24Counsel for the AGC are to submit to me an unredacted copy of the ITO along with their draft judicial summary of the redacted version. They will have 30 days to prepare and submit that material. I will then review the judicial summary and the unredacted version with a view to determining what can be delivered to counsel or Ratte and Singh.
Disposition
25The request by Ratte and Singh for the identity and information about the whereabouts of the CW is denied.
26Then AGC is to submit to me the audio/visual recordings made by the CW, as edited or redacted by the police, within 30 days of today.
27The AGC is to submit to me an unredacted copy of the ITO on which the Quebec Court’s authorization for the audio/visual recordings was based, along with a judicial summary of the redacted version, within 30 days of today.
Morgan J.
Date: May 25, 2026