Sheilah L. Martin

The appellant appealed a criminal conviction upheld by the Court of Appeal for Ontario.

The Supreme Court of Canada heard the appeal and delivered an oral judgment the same day, unanimously dismissing the appeal and upholding the conviction.

Short reasons were indicated to follow.

The Crown appealed from the Saskatchewan Court of Appeal's decision acquitting the respondent of refusing to comply with a breath demand.

Police had entered a private driveway to investigate an impaired driving complaint, found the accused asleep in a running truck, knocked on the window without response, then opened the truck door and detected a strong odour of alcohol.

The majority held that police had an implied licence to enter the driveway and knock on the truck window, but exceeded that licence by opening the door, constituting an unreasonable search under s. 8 of the Charter.

However, the evidence should not be excluded under s. 24(2) given society's strong interest in prosecuting the serious offence.

Four justices dissented, finding that the police exceeded the implied licence from the moment they entered the property with the intent to gather evidence, and that the evidence should be excluded.

The appellant challenged the constitutionality of s. 3 of Quebec's Reduced Contribution Regulation, which excluded refugee claimants from eligibility for subsidized childcare.

The majority found the provision created an adverse impact distinction based on sex and on refugee claimant status (an analogous ground under s. 15(1) of the Charter), and that this distinction was discriminatory as it reinforced disadvantage.

The infringement was not justified under s. 1.

The Court read refugee claimants into s. 3 of the Regulation as an eligible category.

One justice dissented, concluding neither sex-based nor refugee-claimant-status-based discrimination was established.

The appellants challenged a criminal appeal judgment from the Ontario Court of Appeal.

The Supreme Court of Canada heard the appeal and delivered an oral ruling the same day.

The Court held that the appeal should be dismissed, substantially for the reasons of the majority below.

The intervener participated, but the dispositive issue was resolved by adopting the appellate majority's reasoning.

The appellant challenged a Superior Court of Quebec decision concerning the federal election in the electoral district of Terrebonne.

The Supreme Court of Canada heard the appeal and delivered an oral judgment the same day.

A majority allowed the appeal and annulled the federal election held on April 28, 2025, in Terrebonne.

Reasons were reserved, including on costs.

On a mootness appeal arising from pandemic-era entry restrictions, the Court exercised discretion to decide the constitutional questions on the merits.

The Court held that mobility rights under s. 6 of the Charter protect movement across provincial borders and that the challenged travel restrictions limited rights under s. 6(1) and s. 6(2).

Applying the Oakes framework, the Court found the limitations justified under s. 1 in the circumstances of a grave public health emergency.

The appeal was allowed in part, the mootness dismissal was set aside, and the lower court order was modified accordingly.

In a Crown appeal from an acquittal for attempted obstruction of justice, the Court addressed whether an accused lawyer may invoke the innocence-at-stake exception to seek access to privileged client communications.

The Court held the exception is available to accused lawyers and that the McClure framework can be adapted, but found it was premature for lower courts to find a fair-trial breach before such an application was brought.

On the Crown’s concession of a s. 8 breach arising from unauthorized monitoring of a lawyer-client call, the majority applied s. 24(2) and excluded the non-privileged portion of the intercepted call.

The majority concluded the seriousness of state conduct and privacy impact outweighed society’s strong interest in adjudication on the merits.

The appeal was dismissed, with dissenting reasons favouring admission of the evidence and a new trial.

In a property insurance appeal, insured homeowners sought full guaranteed rebuilding costs after a total-loss flood, including legal-compliance costs imposed by conservation authority requirements.

The Court interpreted the standard form policy and guaranteed rebuilding cost endorsement together, holding the compliance-cost exclusion remained operative except for the specified additional $10,000 coverage.

The majority held the exclusion’s language was unambiguous and that applying it did not nullify the endorsement’s core benefit of coverage beyond the policy limit.

Dissenting reasons would have allowed broader recovery at least for compliance costs tied to laws in force at renewal.

The appeal was dismissed with costs.

The appellant challenged a trial ruling under s. 12(1) of the Canada Evidence Act that permitted cross-examination on prior convictions after a Corbett application in a murder jury trial.

The Court clarified the Corbett framework, emphasizing that admissibility turns on whether convictions meaningfully support a credibility inference and whether prejudice, including moral and propensity prejudice, outweighs probative value.

The majority held the trial judge erred by admitting youth and certain violent convictions, but applied the curative proviso because the evidence of guilt was overwhelming.

Concurring judges would have found no reviewable Corbett error and dismissed the appeal on that basis.

The appeal was dismissed and the conviction was upheld.

A municipality and a developer entered into an agreement creating a “land area bank” allowing excess land transferred for park purposes to be credited against future development fees.

The contemplated future cadastral operations never occurred, and the developer’s successor sought compensation for the unused bank.

The Supreme Court held that the agreement effected novation, extinguishing the municipality’s original restitution obligation and replacing it with a new contractual obligation based on the bank.

The obligation was subject to a suspensive term tied to future cadastral operations, which the parties considered certain but whose timing was indeterminate.

Applying art. 1512 C.C.Q., the Court fixed the term at the date of the developer’s demand letter and held that damages for performance by equivalence were appropriate.

The accused was arrested without warrant days after an alleged sexual assault and made an incriminating videotaped statement during police interrogation.

At trial, the judge refused to hold a voir dire on the lawfulness of the arrest under s. 495(2) of the Criminal Code, concluding that s. 495(3) deemed the arrest lawful so long as s. 495(1) grounds existed.

The Supreme Court held that s. 495(2) imposes mandatory limits on warrantless arrest powers and that an arrest contrary to those limits may be unlawful and arbitrary under s. 9 of the Charter.

Section 495(3) only protects peace officers from liability in proceedings against them and does not bar an accused from challenging the legality of the arrest in their own criminal trial.

The refusal to hold a voir dire was an error of law requiring a new trial.

The Crown appealed a decision of the Nova Scotia Court of Appeal which had dismissed the Crown's appeal against an acquittal entered by a judge of the Nova Scotia Provincial Court.

The case concerned charges of sexual exploitation of a person under 18 years of age contrary to s. 153(1)(a) of the Criminal Code.

The Court was divided: three justices would allow the appeal for the reasons of Justice Derrick of the Nova Scotia Court of Appeal, while two justices would dismiss the appeal for the reasons of Chief Justice Wood of that court.

By majority, the appeal was allowed and a new trial ordered on the two relevant counts in the information.

The accused was convicted by jury of the attempted murder of her infant daughter and her mother, and of aggravated assault of the daughter, following an incident in which all three were found unconscious after being injected with insulin.

The Court of Appeal ordered a new trial on the attempted murder count relating to the mother on the basis that the jury instructions failed to distinguish between attempted murder and the offence of aiding suicide where the mother may have self-administered the insulin.

The majority of the Supreme Court of Canada allowed the Crown's appeal, restoring the conviction, finding no air of reality to the theory that the mother voluntarily injected herself with suicidal intent.

The majority held that trial judges must only instruct on theories lacking air of reality where there is a sufficient evidentiary foundation, and that the cumulative circumstantial evidence did not support a reasonable inference that the mother intended to end her own life.

The dissent would have dismissed the Crown's appeal, finding an air of reality to the inference of autonomous self-injection and holding that the trial judge was required to instruct the jury on the legal significance of I.F.'s possible voluntary participation to the actus reus of attempted murder.

On a criminal appeal from the Court of Appeal for Ontario, the appellant challenged an order staying proceedings.

The Supreme Court heard the appeal and delivered oral judgment the same day.

The Court allowed the appeal, set aside the stay order, and remitted the matter for trial.

Reasons were stated to follow.

The appellant appealed a judgment of the Court of Appeal of Quebec affirming the inadequacy of the trial judge's reasons.

A majority of the Court dismissed the appeal substantially for the reasons of the majority of the Court of Appeal concerning the inadequacy of the trial judge's reasons.

The dissenting judge would have allowed the appeal for the reasons given by the dissenting judge at the Court of Appeal.

The judgment was delivered orally on the day of hearing.

The Attorney General of Ontario intervened in the proceedings.

A Canadian mining company detected pit wall instability and a subsequent rockslide at its premier mine in Chile.

The company did not immediately disclose these events to investors, disclosing them about a month later as part of regular updates, after which its share price dropped 16 percent.

An investor sought leave under s. 138.8(1) of the Ontario Securities Act to commence a class action for failure to make timely disclosure of a material change.

The Supreme Court of Canada, dismissing the appeal, held that the motion judge erred in interpreting 'material change' too restrictively.

The undefined terms 'change', 'business', 'operations', and 'capital' should not be constrained by dictionary definitions but applied flexibly and contextually.

The leave test requires a plausible application of the legislative provisions to the facts, not merely a plausible statutory interpretation.

On the uncontested evidence that the events impacted the company's operations, there was a reasonable possibility the action could succeed at trial.

Two federal inmates serving indeterminate sentences applied for reclassification from medium- to minimum-security facilities.

Despite recommendations from their case management teams and wardens, administrative decision-makers denied the reclassifications.

The appellants sought habeas corpus ad subjiciendum with certiorari in aid, challenging the denials as unlawful deprivations of their residual liberty.

The majority held that a decision to deny a lower security reclassification constitutes a deprivation of liberty reviewable by way of habeas corpus, as it has the qualitative effect of restricting liberty without requiring proof of a change in status quo or a pre-existing legal entitlement to the less restrictive state.

The dissent maintained that habeas corpus is only available where an inmate has acquired a legal entitlement to the lower security classification, consistent with the framework in Dumas.

As both appellants had been reclassified and transferred by the time the appeal was heard, the Court allowed the appeal on the moot legal question of public importance.

The appellant was charged with operating a motor vehicle with a blood alcohol concentration exceeding 80 mg percent, contrary to s. 320.14(1)(b) of the Criminal Code.

The Crown sought to rely on the statutory presumption of accuracy under s. 320.31(1)(a), adducing the certificate of the qualified technician and two analyst certificates.

The central issue was whether the Crown must prove, not merely disclose, the target value of the alcohol standard used in the system calibration check in order to rely on the presumption of accuracy.

The majority held that while the target value must be disclosed pursuant to s. 320.34(1)(b), it need not be independently proven at trial as a precondition to the presumption of accuracy, as Parliament did not intend it to be a statutory precondition.

Côté J. dissented, finding that both disclosure and proof of the target value are constitutionally required to preserve the presumption of innocence and the accused's right to make full answer and defence.

The appellant was charged with operating a motor vehicle with a blood alcohol concentration equal to or exceeding the legal limit within two hours of ceasing to operate the vehicle.

The Crown sought to rely on the statutory presumption of accuracy under s. 320.31(1) of the Criminal Code to prove the appellant's blood alcohol concentration, relying solely on the certificate of the qualified technician rather than producing independent evidence from the analyst who certified the alcohol standard.

The central question was whether s. 320.31(1)(a)'s requirement that the system calibration check be conducted with an alcohol standard certified by an analyst could be proved through the qualified technician's hearsay evidence.

The majority held that Parliament intended to preserve the evidentiary rule allowing the qualified technician's certificate to satisfy the precondition, finding that the phrase 'certified by an analyst' carries the same meaning as the former 'suitable for use' and that s. 320.32(1) creates a broad hearsay exception encompassing the qualified technician's statement about certification.

Côté J. dissented, concluding that the 2018 amendments established a new requirement that the Crown lead independent evidence from the analyst and that permitting double hearsay to ground a conclusive presumption of guilt is constitutionally suspect and contrary to the plain meaning of the provisions.

The appellant was acquitted at trial on a charge of transmitting sexually explicit material to a child for the purpose of facilitating sexual assault or indecent exposure under s. 171.1(1)(b) of the Criminal Code.

The Court of Appeal set aside the acquittal and substituted a conviction, finding the trial judge erred in law by characterizing the appellant's conduct as merely flirtatious and by conflating the mens rea of the enumerated offence with that of the charged offence.

The Supreme Court of Canada upheld the conviction, confirming that to establish the inchoate offence under s. 171.1(1)(b), the Crown need only prove the accused transmitted sexually explicit material for the purpose of facilitating a listed offence, not that the accused intended to commit that offence.

The Court affirmed that facilitating includes grooming a child by reducing inhibitions or exploiting immaturity.

The Court added that characterizing an adult's sexualized conduct toward a child as flirtatious is a serious mischaracterization with no place in criminal justice proceedings involving sexual violence against children.