decision on APPLICATION

Introduction:

1The applicants seek an order to terminate or vary the sealing order relating to an Information to Obtain (the “ITO”) pursuant to s. 487.3(4) of the Criminal Code of Canada, thereby permitting the disclosure to the applicants of an unredacted copy of the ITO.

2The Crown opposes the application on the basis that unsealing the ITO without redactions would be contrary to the interests of justice in that it would adversely impact the ongoing investigation and create prejudice to innocent persons by potentially compromising their safety.

3On consent of the Crown, an order was made on April 14, 2026, amending the sealing order and authorizing public access to a redacted copy of the ITO, without prejudice to the application for disclosure of the entire ITO.

Background:

4Randy Fader was murdered on April 1, 2024 in Niagara Falls Ontario. The crime has been investigated by the Niagara Regional Police Service. During the investigation, Detective Constable James Prinsen applied for and received judicial authorization for a search warrant to search a Ford Explorer vehicle and examine four cell phones associated with Malik Cunningham. The warrant was granted based on the ITO filed by D.C. Prinsen sworn April 24, 2024.

5Mr. Cunningham has been charged in the United States with murder. He is in custody in Canada and extradition proceedings are under way to have him extradited to the United States.

6The murder of Mr. Fader is said to be connected to a large-scale trans-national cocaine trafficking ring controlled by Ryan Wedding. Mr. Wedding has been arrested in the United States as have several members of the alleged trafficking ring resident in Canada and elsewhere.

Position of the parties:

7The applicants seek disclosure of the contents of the ITO as part of their role reporting to the public on the various criminal proceedings arising from the alleged criminal enterprise of Ryan Wedding. They rely on the public’s right to know, and the open court principle protected by s. 2(b) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

8The Crown in response submits that the investigation is complex and ongoing, involving many individuals, some of whom are unidentified and who have not been arrested. It submits that unsealing the ITO would compromise police efforts to identify those individuals and complete an effective investigation. Further, the Crown submits that revealing details contained in the ITO could endanger individuals identified as having direct or indirect involvement in the investigation.

Applicable legislative provisions and principles:

9The parties do not disagree about the applicable legal principles.

10The open court principle, articulated by the Supreme Court of Canada in what has come to be known as the Dagenais/Mentuck test was restated by that court in Sherman Estate v. Donovan, 2021 SCC 25, [2021] 2 S.C.R. 75, at paras. 37 and 38:

37Court proceedings are presumptively open to the public (MacIntyre, at p. 189; A.B. v. Bragg Communications Inc., 2012 SCC 46, [2012] 2 S.C.R. 567, at para. 11).

38The test for discretionary limits on presumptive court openness has been expressed as a two‑step inquiry involving the necessity and proportionality of the proposed order (Sierra Club, at para. 53). Upon examination, however, this test rests upon three core prerequisites that a person seeking such a limit must show. Recasting the test around these three prerequisites, without altering its essence, helps to clarify the burden on an applicant seeking an exception to the open court principle. In order to succeed, the person asking a court to exercise discretion in a way that limits the open court presumption must establish that:

(1) court openness poses a serious risk to an important public interest;

(2) the order sought is necessary to prevent this serious risk to the identified interest because reasonably alternative measures will not prevent this risk; and,

(3) as a matter of proportionality, the benefits of the order outweigh its negative effects.

Only where all three of these prerequisites have been met can a discretionary limit on openness — for example, a sealing order, a publication ban, an order excluding the public from a hearing, or a redaction order — properly be ordered. This test applies to all discretionary limits on court openness, subject only to valid legislative enactments (Toronto Star Newspapers Ltd. v. Ontario, 2005 SCC 41, [2005] 2 S.C.R. 188, at paras. 7 and 22).

11Once the search warrant was executed, as here, and based on the open court principle, the Crown bears the burden of justifying the continuation of the sealing order limiting access to the ITO. See R. v. Verilli, 2020 NSCA 64, at para. 36.

12The application of the test for imposing a limit on court openness must be applied flexibly and contextually as set out by the Supreme Court in Toronto Star Newspapers v. Ontario 2005 SCC 41, [2005] 2 S.C.R. 188, at para. 31:

It hardly follows, however, that the Dagenais/Mentuck test should be applied mechanistically. Regard must always be had to the circumstances in which a sealing order is sought by the Crown, or by others with a real and demonstrated interest in delaying public disclosure. The test, though applicable at all stages, is a flexible and contextual one. Courts have thus tailored it to fit a variety of discretionary actions, such as confidentiality orders, judicial investigative hearings, and Crown-initiated applications for publication bans.

Analysis:

13The Crown seeks to justify the continuation of the sealing order based on concerns that unsealing the entire ITO will negatively affect the administration of justice by impairing the ongoing investigation and potentially endangering individuals identified in the ITO.

14The applicants accept that the interests sought to be protected by the Crown are important.

15Since the applicable law is not in dispute, the question is whether the Crown has met its burden of demonstrating that the redactions are necessary in the context of this matter, that is, whether disclosure of the unredacted ITO will create a serious risk to those important interests.

Danger to Individuals:

16The safety of witnesses and members of the public is a serious matter.

17In this case, the circumstances of the murder of Mr. Fader disclose the orchestrated killing of an individual who appears to have been involved in the cocaine trafficking enterprise of which Ryan Wedding was allegedly a part. The murder appears to have been planned and deliberate, based on the facts set out in the ITO.

18Material from the FBI indictment filed October 28, 2025 (referred to by D.C. Prinsen in his March 4, 2026 affidavit) indicates that Ryan Wedding and his lieutenant Andrew Clark placed a bounty on “Victim A” to avoid their extradition from Mexico. “Victim A” was said to be an informant. Arrangements were apparently made to kill him, and he was ultimately executed in Columbia on January 31, 2025. That scenario was relied upon by the Crown to show the lengths that the Ryan Wedding organization would go to eliminate a witness.

19Balanced against that disturbing scenario is the fact that since January 2025, both Mr. Wedding and Mr. Clark, as well their alleged third-in-command Rolan Sokolovski, Mr. Cunningham and a significant number of their alleged criminal associates have been arrested and are in custody. As well, the individuals identified in the ITO appear to have had a minimal role in the police investigation. In effect, they were bit players who might offer small pieces of relevant evidence in a prosecution.

20If, as it would seem, the Ryan Wedding organization has been dismantled, identifying the names of those contacted by the police during the investigation should not pose a safety risk to them.

Compromising the Investigation:

21The Crown submits that disclosure of the ITO’s content would impede the ongoing investigation.

22It is true that the considerations applicable to the release of the ITO during an investigation as opposed to a release following its conclusion are different. D.C. Prinsen deposed that the police are still in search of at least one other possible suspect in the death of Mr. Fader. They have his cell phone and hope to be able to examine it to secure further evidence. That may in turn lead them to lay additional charges. I make no comment about the passage of over two years since the cell phone was obtained, and acknowledge that some investigations, especially involving complex cases, can take time.

23However, the fact that an investigation is open is not in itself sufficient to outweigh the open court principle and prevent the disclosure of the details contained in the ITO. The simple assertion by D.C. Prinsen that unsealing the ITO would compromise efforts to identify further suspects, without more, is not helpful.

24The ITO obviously contains only information available as of April 4, 2024, and nothing that may have been found since that time. It primarily contains detail which is quite specifically directed to the prosecution of the killer or killers of Mr. Fader.

25Although it is true that disclosure of the ITO may tell an outstanding suspect what the police knew two years ago, it is unlikely at this point, as suggested by D.C. Prinsen, that it will trigger efforts to destroy evidence. Likewise, to let a suspect surmise what evidence the police did not have, two years ago, does not seem like a significant reason for continuing non-disclosure.

26In addition, it appears through the submissions and materials filed by the applicants that much of the detail in the ITO, beyond that which has been agreed to be disclosed in the redacted version, is already in the public domain. That detail has come from court filings in the United States, in the extradition hearing for Mr. Cunningham, and elsewhere and has been apparently part of the reporting by the press to date.

27The suggestion that disclosure of the ITO would let a suspect know of others who may be under investigation or what tactics are being contemplated by the police is unconvincing.

28There is a potential concern flowing from ITO disclosure that additional witnesses will be influenced in their evidence by what they have learned from the public domain, rather than from their own observations or experience. Related to that is a concern that the police will lose their ability to withhold relevant information to help test the reliability of information offered.

29Although those concerns are legitimate, they are not unique to this case and are just factors to be weighed in balancing whether the Crown has satisfied its onus to justify maintaining the sealing order. As set out by the Ontario Court of Appeal in R. v. Toronto Star Newspapers Ltd. (2003), 2003 CanLII 13331 (ON CA), 67 O.R. (3d) 577 (C.A.) at para. 27:

Detective Sergeant Clelland offers no specific basis for his concern that potential witnesses will be tainted if the contents of the information are revealed. He points to no specific information and to no specific individual. He very candidly acknowledges that disclosure would do no more than "make it more difficult for the Ontario Provincial Police to gather the best evidence in respect of the investigation". I can accept that the police might have an advantage in questioning some individuals if those individuals were unaware of the details of the police investigation. Fundamental freedoms, like the freedom of expression and freedom of the press, cannot, however, be sacrificed to give the police a "leg up" on an investigation. As Iacobucci J. observed in R. v. Mentuck, supra, at para. 34, access to court documents cannot be denied solely because maintaining the secrecy of those proceedings would give the police an advantage in the conduct of their investigation.

Those comments were not challenged in the subsequent Supreme Court decision, referenced above.

Conclusion:

30Applying the open court principles articulated in Sherman Estate, I conclude that the Crown has failed to establish that terminating the sealing order would be contrary to the interests of justice, namely the effective investigation of the matter and protection of the safety of individuals. Contextually in this case, court openness does not pose a serious risk to those important public interests. Having failed to satisfy me as to the first part of the test, it is unnecessary for me to examine the second and third parts.

31For the reasons set out above, I grant the application and order that the sealing order made pursuant to s. 487.3 of the Criminal Code be terminated.

32At the hearing, no submissions were made as to costs. If costs are being claimed, the applicants are to contact the trial co-ordinators to secure a date before me for brief submissions, which can be made at a virtual hearing. If no request is received by July 6, 2026, the matter of costs will be deemed resolved.

Reid J.

Date: June 19, 2026

Canadian Broadcasting Corporation v. Ontario, 2026 ONSC 3615

Case Summary

decision on APPLICATION

Introduction:

Background:

Position of the parties:

Applicable legislative provisions and principles:

Analysis:

Danger to Individuals:

Compromising the Investigation:

Conclusion:

Canadian Broadcasting Corporation v. Ontario, 2026 ONSC 3615

Case Summary

decision on APPLICATION

Introduction:

Background:

Position of the parties:

Applicable legislative provisions and principles:

Analysis:

Danger to Individuals:

Compromising the Investigation:

Conclusion: