Constitutional law — Division of powers — Labour relations — Company normally and habitually providing crane and heavy equipment rental services and, to lesser extent, stevedoring services — Whether stevedoring activities form part of federal jurisdiction over shipping — Whether stevedoring activities form integral part of federally regulated undertaking — Whether company’s employees governed by federal or provincial occupational health and safety legislation — Constitution Act, 1867, ss. 91(10), 92(10), and 92(13).

Held: The appeal should be dismissed.

T is a heavy equipment rental company that rents out cranes and heavy equipment. It also engages in intra‑provincial road transportation and maintenance and repair of equipment. In 2005‑2006, some of its cranes were used for stevedoring. This activity represented 14 percent of its overall revenue and 20 percent of the salaries paid to employees. T’s stevedoring services were not performed by a discrete unit of employees; the employees were fully integrated into T’s workforce and worked interchangeably across the different sectors of the organization. At the relevant time, all of T’s activities took place within the province of Quebec.

In 2006, and based on the Stevedores Reference, [1955] S.C.R 529, T’s parent company sought a declaration from Quebec’s Commission de la santé et de la sécurité du travail (“CSST”) that T’s activities fell under federal jurisdiction and that it was not, as a result, subject to provincial occupational health and safety legislation. T argued that its stevedoring activities are part of the federal government’s jurisdiction over shipping, with the result that its employees should be federally regulated. The CSST concluded that T’s activities came under provincial jurisdiction. This conclusion was upheld by the Commission des lésions professionnelles but was overturned by the Superior Court. The Court of Appeal allowed the appeal and agreed that provincial regulation applied, based primarily on the findings that stevedoring represented only a minor part of T’s overall operations, that it did not have a special stevedoring division, and that T had not adduced evidence of the nature of its contractual or organizational relationships with the federal shipping companies it serviced.

Tessier Ltée v. Quebec (Commission de la santé et de la sécurité du travail), 2012 SCC 23

Sections 135 & 136 are within Section 3, Post-Sentencing, of the Act and amend the International Transfer of Offenders Act. 

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Criminal law — Appeals — Power of court of appeal — Unreasonable verdict — Credibility of witnesses — Trial judge holding that testimonial evidence as whole did not raise reasonable doubt that accused guilty on charge of indecent assault with regard to incidents that had occurred more than 30 years earlier — Whether verdict unreasonable — Criminal Code, R.S.C. 1985, c. C‑46, s. 686(1)(a)(i).

Held (LeBel and Fish JJ. dissenting): The appeal should be allowed and the conviction restored.

R.P. was convicted of indecently assaulting M.L., his sister‑in‑law. The trial was held more than 30 years after the impugned acts. According to M.L., the abuse had occurred when she went to babysit the children of her sister G.L. and R.P., and it had taken place in their residence on some occasions and in their car at other times when R.P. drove her home. The trial judge did not believe R.P. and set out numerous reasons to explain why he considered M.L.’s testimony credible. He accepted the police officers’ testimony and held that the prosecution had proved beyond a reasonable doubt that the offence had been committed. The majority of the Court of Appeal held that the verdict was unreasonable in light of the evidence and entered an acquittal. The dissenting judge found that the trial judge had made no palpable and overriding error in assessing the evidence and that the verdict was not unreasonable.

Per Deschamps, Abella, Cromwell, Moldaver and Karakatsanis JJ.: To decide whether a verdict is unreasonable, an appellate court must determine whether the verdict is one that a properly instructed jury or a judge could have rendered. A court of appeal that reviews a trial court’s assessments of credibility in order to determine, for example, whether the verdict is reasonable cannot interfere with those assessments unless it is established that they cannot be supported on any reasonable view of the evidence.

Per LeBel and Fish JJ. (dissenting): In reviewing the evidence in great detail, the majority of the Court of Appeal committed no error, as it was required to articulate as precisely as possible what features of the case support its conclusion that the verdict was unreasonable.

R. v. R.P., 2012 SCC 22

- the Review Board did not provide reasons of how the conduct of these students met the bar for misconduct, simply drew a conclusion that it did;
- there was no discussion of whether the defence of justification or fair comment could apply to the students’ statements;
- while hearsay evidence is generally admissible at administrative tribunals, that does not eliminate the need to “evaluate the quality of the evidence”, here described as “double or triple hearsay of an extremely vague nature” (paras 59-60).

The other ground for appeal was the Chambers Judge’s decision that the Charter applied. (The Review Board had held, citing McKinney v University of Guelph, [1990] 3 SCR 229 as authority, that the Charter does not apply to universities in any circumstances.) This appeal was also dismissed. The Chambers decision that the provision of post-secondary education is government policy, governed by statute, was upheld. “In exercising its statutory authority to discipline students for non-academic misconduct, it is incumbent on the Review Committee to interpret and apply the Student Misconduct Policy in light of the students’ Charter rights, including their freedom of expression.” (para 112)

Pridgen v. University of Calgary, 2012 ABCA 139

Criminal law — Evidence — Admissibility — Similar fact evidence — Prior conviction — Voir dire — Whether Crown was entitled to lead prior conviction on similar fact voir dire — Whether accused was entitled to challenge prior conviction on similar fact voir dire — Whether trial judge committed reversible error in finding, at trial, that accused had likely assaulted first victim.

The appellant was charged with sexually assaulting a severely intoxicated woman, J.M., by inserting a wine cork into her vagina. At trial, the Crown sought to introduce similar fact evidence showing that, in 1995, a jury had convicted the appellant of sexually assaulting another severely intoxicated woman, J.S., by inserting two large plastic shopping bags into her vagina. Although the appellant maintained at that trial that he was not J.S.’s assailant, he did not appeal the conviction or challenge the seven‑year sentence he received.

The appellant’s trial for sexually assaulting J.M. was conducted by a judge alone. On a voir dire to determine the admissibility of the similar fact evidence regarding J.S., the trial judge permitted the Crown to prove the 1995 conviction for the limited purpose of linking the appellant to the earlier sexual assault. The trial judge did not permit the appellant to challenge the prior conviction on the voir dire, although she allowed him to do so on the trial proper. Placing considerable weight on the prior conviction involving J.S., the trial judge ultimately convicted the appellant of sexually assaulting J.M. His appeal from conviction was dismissed by the British Columbia Court of Appeal.

Held : Dismissed.

R. v. Jesse, 2012 SCC 21