Following in camera hearing establishing police investigative privilege regarding information related to Mobile Device Identifiers (MDI)s, accuseds sought disclosure of the privileged information under s 37(5) of the Canada Evidence Act. Applicants argued that notwithstanding the established privilege, information should be disclosed.
Held: Application dismissed; disclosure denied.
“While section 37(5) wisely allows for different levels of disclosure, in my view that analysis is proper only if it is determined that the public interest in disclosure outweighs the investigative privilege…what form the disclosure should take is a matter of shaping the relief, not determining entitlement to relief”. Unlike Mirarchi, 2015 QCCS 6628, where Crown depended heavily on MDI results, here, the evidence at the in camera hearing suggested that the MDI results for the two applicants were not meaningful. Strong reasons for protecting investigative privilege outweighed the public interest in disclosure.
C. Rice, K. Sitar – Defence Counsel