Superior Court of Justice

The applicant, an Indigenous man charged with serious firearms and drug trafficking offences, sought a bail review on the sole ground that the Justice of the Peace failed to give due weight to Gladue considerations under s. 493.2 of the Criminal Code.

The Superior Court of Justice reviewed the application of Gladue principles at the bail stage, noting that while judicial notice must be taken of systemic factors, the accused should provide case-specific information bearing on release.

The court found the Justice of the Peace had properly considered the applicant's unique circumstances and dismissed the application for lack of jurisdiction to review.

The plaintiff, a resident of downtown Ottawa, brought a motion for an interlocutory injunction to restrain the defendants and other participants in the 'Freedom Convoy' protest from sounding vehicle horns.

The plaintiff alleged the constant noise constituted a private nuisance causing irreparable harm, including potential permanent hearing damage.

The court applied the RJR-MacDonald test, finding a serious issue to be tried, irreparable harm based on medical evidence, and that the balance of convenience favoured the residents' right to quiet over the protestors' right to express themselves via horn honking.

An interim injunction was granted for 10 days.

The applicant children's aid society brought a motion for an order placing the child in its temporary care and custody.

The respondent father and stepmother sought the child's return to their care, while the respondent mother sought unsupervised access.

The court found credible and trustworthy evidence that the child was exposed to a high conflict environment and inappropriate discipline in the father and stepmother's care, creating a risk of emotional and physical harm.

The court concluded that a supervision order would not adequately protect the child and ordered that the child remain in the temporary care and custody of the society with specified access for the respondents.

The defendants' solicitor of record brought a motion to be removed due to a complete breakdown in the solicitor-client relationship.

The defendant, acting in person, agreed with the removal and orally requested an adjournment of the upcoming trial to retain new counsel.

The 90-year-old plaintiff opposed the adjournment due to prejudice from delay.

The court granted the motion to remove the solicitor and adjourned the trial, but ordered an interim distribution of $90,000 from the estate to the plaintiff to mitigate prejudice.

The applicant mother brought a motion to change a previous parenting order to permit her to relocate with the parties' nine-year-old autistic son from London, Ontario to Moncton, New Brunswick.

The mother argued the move was necessary due to better French-language autism therapy programs and employment prospects in New Brunswick.

The court found a material change in circumstances due to the mother's inability to secure employment in Ontario and uncertainty regarding autism funding.

Applying the best interests of the child test, the court granted the relocation, finding the mother's plan was child-centered and would better meet the child's needs, while ordering adjusted parenting time and travel cost arrangements for the respondent father.

The accused, charged with sexual offences against a child, brought pre-trial applications alleging a section 7 Charter breach for lost evidence and seeking to adduce third-party suspect evidence.

The accused argued that police failed to preserve evidence by not searching his recreational vehicle at the time of the initial complaint, which would have revealed the absence of sex toys.

The court dismissed the lost evidence application, finding the existence of such evidence was speculative and the police decision not to search was reasonable.

The court also dismissed the third-party suspect application, ruling that the complainant's alleged prior statement about her father lacked sufficient connection to the specific crimes to be probative.

The plaintiff brought a motion for a certificate of pending litigation in an action for specific performance of an agreement of purchase and sale of a residential property.

The transaction failed to close after the property remained occupied by a tenant and other individuals, and the plaintiff subsequently asked for her deposit back.

The court dismissed the motion, finding that the plaintiff lost any claim to an interest in the land when she chose to terminate the agreement, and that her allegations of misrepresentation would only give rise to a claim for damages.

The Mother brought a motion to compel the Father to undergo a psychiatric risk assessment as recommended by the court-appointed assessor.

The Father cross-moved to adjourn the motion pending disclosure and to appoint a different assessor for both parties.

The court found the assessor had the authority to direct the risk assessment but agreed with the Father's objection to the specific psychiatrist due to a potential conflict of interest.

The court also ordered both parties to complete disclosure before the assessment continued.

The Crown applied for a bail review of a justice of the peace's decision to release the accused, who was charged with multiple serious offences involving the prolonged abuse of a child.

The reviewing judge found that the justice of the peace committed legal errors by misapprehending the timeline of the offences, failing to consider the gravity of the charges, and refusing to assess the potential for a lengthy sentence.

Conducting a fresh analysis under the tertiary ground, the court concluded that pre-trial detention was necessary to maintain public confidence in the administration of justice, given the strength of the Crown's case, the heinous circumstances of the alleged offences, the accused's prior criminal record, and the lack of a meaningful release plan.

The application was granted and the accused was remanded into custody.

The appellant appealed his conviction for operating a motor vehicle with a blood alcohol concentration over 80.

The offence occurred before the enactment of Bill C-46, but the trial took place after the amendments came into effect.

The appellant argued that the presumption of identity in former s. 258(1)(c) of the Criminal Code was no longer available in transitional cases and that the Crown was required to present expert evidence relating the breath test results back to the time of driving.

The Summary Conviction Appeal Court dismissed the appeal, following binding precedent that the presumption of identity remains available in transitional cases.

In a high-conflict family law proceeding, the court held a focused trial to determine parenting and child support issues for three children.

The court considered whether to release the two younger children from a court-ordered parenting schedule based on their views and preferences.

The court released the 16-year-old child from the schedule effective August 2022 but declined to release the 14-year-old child.

The applicant mother was granted sole decision-making authority.

The court also calculated child support and section 7 expense arrears, ordering the respondent father to pay outstanding amounts.

Ongoing child support was reduced to $1,850 per month to reflect the shared parenting arrangement and the eldest child attending university.

The plaintiffs brought an urgent ex parte motion for an Anton Piller Order and related injunctive relief against a former independent contractor.

The contractor allegedly manipulated invoices, and upon being suspended, launched a cyber attack that shut down the plaintiffs' systems, deleted sensitive data, and caused significant financial damage.

The contractor also allegedly engaged in a campaign of defamation, doxing, and death threats against the plaintiffs' personnel.

The court found the evidence justified the rare remedy of an Anton Piller Order without notice to prevent the destruction of evidence.

Following a trial where the accused was found guilty of two counts of sexual assault, the court considered whether entering convictions on both counts would violate the rule against multiple convictions.

The court found that the two assaults constituted a single transaction with sufficient factual and legal nexus.

On the joint position of the parties, the court entered a conviction on the first count and conditionally stayed the second count pursuant to the Kienapple rule.

The plaintiffs requested an urgent case conference to schedule a mediation and fix a trial date before the action was administratively dismissed.

One of the plaintiffs objected, citing an upcoming motion regarding the removal of his counsel in a separate action.

The court found it unfair to delay the other plaintiffs and ordered that mediation be held by June 30, 2022, and that the action appear on the trial scheduling court list on April 11, 2022.

The accused was charged with trafficking fentanyl, criminal negligence causing death, and manslaughter following the overdose death of an acquaintance.

In pretrial motions, the Crown sought to admit two police statements, while the defence sought to exclude the statements and text messages found on the deceased's cell phone.

The court found the statements were voluntary and not obtained in breach of s. 10 of the Charter.

However, the court ruled that the warrantless search of the deceased's cell phone at the scene violated the accused's s. 8 Charter rights.

The court excised the text messages from the search warrant information, found the remaining grounds insufficient, and excluded the text message evidence under s. 24(2) of the Charter.

The three co-accused applicants brought a pre-trial motion challenging the validity of a search warrant that led to the seizure of firearms and drugs.

The Crown asserted Confidential Informant privilege over portions of the Information to Obtain (ITO) and provided a redacted version along with a proposed judicial summary.

In this Step 6 Garofoli ruling, the court held that the proposed judicial summary sufficiently alerted the defence to the nature of the redacted information, allowing them to challenge the warrant by argument or evidence.

The Crown was permitted to rely on the unredacted ITO to support the issuance of the warrant.

Following a motion regarding interim support and control of a business, the parties were unable to agree on costs.

The applicant sought $26,072.49 based on unaccepted offers to settle, while the respondent argued for costs to be deferred to trial, claiming mixed success.

The court found the applicant was the successful party and declined to defer costs.

The court awarded the applicant $17,000 in costs on an elevated partial indemnity scale of 66%, reflecting condemnation of the respondent's failure to adhere to previous court orders.

In a family trial, the court decided an evidentiary application concerning a young child's out-of-court statements alleging physical discipline and expressing discomfort with the applicant's conduct.

Applying the principled hearsay approach from Khan, the court held necessity was established and found threshold reliability for certain statements based on spontaneity, surrounding circumstances, and corroboration from third-party evidence.

A secretly made audio recording of the child was excluded because its poor quality and the systemic prejudice associated with surreptitious recordings in family litigation outweighed its slight probative value.

The child's statements about being slapped and about disliking kisses because the applicant's mouth was not clean were admitted.

The plaintiffs brought a motion for a certificate of pending litigation (CPL) after the defendants terminated an agreement of purchase and sale for a residential property.

The defendants claimed the agreement was terminated because the plaintiffs failed to provide a certified cheque for the deposit, though the agreement only required a 'negotiable cheque'.

The court found that the plaintiffs had established a reasonable claim to an interest in the land, noting the property's unique feature of abutting a public park.

Concluding that the defendants likely repudiated the agreement to seek a higher purchase price in a rising market, the court held that the equities strongly favoured the plaintiffs and granted the CPL.

The offender was found guilty of sexually interfering with and sexually assaulting his common-law wife's granddaughter over an eight-year period, beginning when the child was five years old.

The Crown sought a sentence of three to four years, while the defence proposed two years plus a day.

Applying the principles from R. v. Friesen, the court emphasized denunciation, deterrence, and the profound breach of trust involved.

The offender was sentenced to three years' imprisonment for sexual interference, with the sexual assault count stayed under the Kienapple principle, along with mandatory ancillary orders.