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Ontario Court of Justice Recent Decisions

• 2025-12-02 R. v. Deschenes, 2025 ONCJ 630 (CanLII)
  Key Words: Rights and freedoms — Search and seizure — Reasonable grounds — Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, s. 11 — Did the corrected ITO disclose reasonable grounds to believe drugs or related things would be found at 4211 Cedar Springs? — Inferences from bin movements, surveillance, and tracker data — Pattern of attendances before and after trafficking — Reasonable belief established — Reasonable grounds established<br />Rights and freedoms — Search warrants — Scope and precision — Was the authorisation overbroad in permitting a search of the dwelling house and all outbuildings on a multi‑occupant rural property? — Need for specificity where multiple structures and potential third‑party interests — No basis tying evidence to particular buildings — Authorisation could not issue for entire property<br />Rights and freedoms — Charter s. 8 — Unreasonable search — Did the search breach s. 8 because the warrant could not have issued and no warrantless authority was asserted? — Tailoring of warrant to specific places required — Multi‑unit property considerations — Overbreadth resulting in unlawful search — Charter breach found<br />Rights and freedoms — Charter s. 24(2) — Exclusion of evidence — Should the evidence be excluded after a s. 8 breach? — Gravity of the breach assessed below moderate — Moderate impact on privacy interests — Reliable, vital evidence of serious drug and firearm offences — Societal interest in a trial on the merits predominates — Evidence admitted
• 2025-12-01 Children’s Aid Society of Toronto v. K.Y., 2025 ONCJ 623 (CanLII)
  Key Words: Evidence — Admissibility — Child hearsay — Whether evidence from the OCL Clinician is admissible to present the child’s views and wishes — Potential conflict of interest with full‑time CAST employment — Independence of the child’s representation and hearsay dangers assessed — Court declines to admit the OCL Clinician’s evidence — Evidence excluded<br />Evidence — Hearsay — Threshold reliability — Khelawon, Bradshaw — Whether circumstances achieve threshold reliability — Conflicting interests, CPIN access, nondisclosure in affidavits, credibility concerns — Ability to assess perception, memory, narration and sincerity compromised — No adequate substitutes or inherent trustworthiness shown — Evidence excluded<br />Evidence — Hearsay — Necessity — Khan principled exception — Whether it is reasonably necessary to admit the OCL Clinician’s statements — No presumption of necessity for child statements — Availability of the child’s therapist and other reliable sources of the child’s views and wishes — Necessity not established — Evidence excluded<br />Professional responsibility — Counsel conduct — Re‑examination — Whether CAST counsel providing re‑examination questions to OCL counsel during voir dire was proper — Strict parameters and rehabilitative purpose of re‑examination reviewed — Alignment of parties to assist in rehabilitating another party’s witness criticised — Re‑examination not for separate aligned party to assist — Conduct criticised
• 2025-12-01 R. v. Khoshaba, 2025 ONCJ 624 (CanLII)
  Key Words: Criminal and statutory offences — Sentencing — Manslaughter — Appropriate sentence for co‑principals where violence was protracted and severe — Range for manslaughter with aggravating features identified as 8–12 years — Guilty pleas, first offender status and remorse weighed against group attack using weapons of opportunity, foreseeability of death — Fit and proportionate sentence fixed — Penitentiary terms of 8.5 years imposed<br />Criminal and statutory offences — Sentencing — Pre‑sentence custody — Whether custodial conditions justify mitigation — Lengthy pre‑sentence detention with lockdowns and overcrowding recognised — Authorities considered, including R. v. Marshall, 2021 ONCA 344 — Enhanced credit methodology applied and conditions factored into proportionality assessment — Mitigation for harsh pre‑sentence custody applied<br />Criminal and statutory offences — Ancillary orders — Firearms prohibition and DNA order — Whether lifetime prohibitions should issue — Application of Criminal Code, s. 109(3), to manslaughter sentencing — Scope of ancillary orders following penitentiary sentence — DNA order directed in ordinary course — Lifetime firearms prohibition and DNA order made
• 2025-12-01 R. v. Lam, 2025 ONCJ 625 (CanLII)
  Key Words: Criminal and statutory offences — Sentencing — Youthful first offender — Fit global sentence for loaded prohibited firearm and mid-level fentanyl and cocaine trafficking — Proportionality, denunciation and deterrence balanced with rehabilitation and restraint under s. 718 and s. 718.1 — Morris factors and community support considered — Mid-level dealer and ounce-level cocaine sales found — Total sentence of 6 years and 6 months imposed<br />Criminal and statutory offences — Conditional sentence — Availability — Whether a conditional sentence is available for serious firearm and mid-level trafficking offences — Gravity of offences and public safety risks outweighing community disposition — Rehabilitation acknowledged but penitentiary term “clearly warranted” — Conditional sentence not available per appellate guidance — Conditional sentence refused<br />Criminal and statutory offences — Consecutive and concurrent sentences — Totality — Application of totality and choice between concurrent and consecutive terms for related offences under s. 718.2(c) — Different legal interests protected justifying some consecutivity — Sentences reduced and concurrency applied to avoid an excessive cumulative term — Global sentence calibrated — Consecutive and concurrent terms ordered<br />Rights and freedoms — Charter remedies — Sentencing mitigation — Whether Charter breaches under ss. 10(a) and 10(b) should mitigate sentence — Breaches did not affect circumstances of offence or offender in a manner relevant to fitness of sentence — Authorities on mitigation reviewed and applied — Charter-based reduction declined — No sentence mitigation for Charter breaches
• 2025-12-01 Sterling v. Whittingham, 2025 ONCJ 626 (CanLII)
  Key Words: Procedure — Costs — Self‑represented litigants — Entitlement and quantification of costs for successful in‑person party — Application of Family Law Rules rr. 18 and 24 and Mattina v. Mattina — Hourly rate assessment for lay litigant time — Whether the mother may recover costs for work ordinarily done by a lawyer — Costs awarded<br />Procedure — Costs — Unreasonable conduct — Elevated costs for failure to disclose and non‑compliance — Factors under r. 24 including behaviour, time, offers, and ability to pay — Reliance on Beaver v. Hill and Weber v. Weber — Whether elevated costs justified by disclosure breaches and non‑payment of support — Costs elevated<br />Family — Support enforcement — Family Responsibility Office — Whether costs award is a support order under Family Responsibility and Support Arrears Enforcement Act, 1996, s. 1(1)(g) — Direction to Director for enforcement against available remedies — Whether enforcement should proceed through the Family Responsibility Office — Enforcement by Director ordered