Remedies Granted by the Minister   

During the reporting period, the Minister granted one remedy pursuant to section 696.3 (3) (a) of the Criminal Code.

André Tremblay

André Tremblay was convicted in February 1984 of first-degree murder in the killing of Serge Fournier, who died on July 3, 1982. Tremblay was sentenced to life imprisonment, with no parole eligibility for 25 years. Further appeals were unsuccessful and Tremblay applied for a ministerial review.

The only ground for Tremblay's application related to the statements of a jailhouse informant, who had testified that the accused had confessed to him when they were both in custody. The informant later recanted under oath his trial testimony in 1988 and 1991. As well, Tremblay and his counsel were never told that the informant had received certain advantages in exchange for his trial testimony.

On July 17, 2005, the Minister determined there was a reasonable basis to conclude that a miscarriage of justice likely occurred in this case and referred it to the Quebec Court of Appeal.

No date has been set for the hearing.

Update on Remedies Granted

This section provides an update on previous cases which the Minister has referred back to the courts.

Rodney Cain

Rodney Cain was convicted of the second-degree murder of Joel Willis on February 14, 1985, after a trial at Toronto, Ontario. He was sentenced to life imprisonment without eligibility for parole for 12 years. His appeal against conviction was dismissed by the Ontario Court of Appeal on November 3, 1987, although the Court reduced the period of imprisonment that Cain would have to serve before being eligible for parole from 12 to 10 years.

On May 19, 2004, the Minister granted Cain's application for ministerial review, quashed his murder conviction and ordered a new trial.

In June 2006, a jury convicted Cain of manslaughter, and a judge sentenced him to one day in jail in addition to the ten years he had already served on the original murder conviction.

Steven Truscott

After a jury trial, Steven Truscott, at age 14, was convicted of murder at Goderich, Ontario, on September 30, 1959. He was sentenced to death, as was then required by law. The Ontario Court of Appeal dismissed his appeal on January 20, 1960. The next day, his sentence was commuted to life imprisonment. The Supreme Court of Canada dismissed his application for leave to appeal on February 24, 1960.

Subsequently, concern arose that Truscott's conviction might have been a miscarriage of justice. On April 26, 1966, the Government of Canada referred his case to the Supreme Court of Canada. The Supreme Court was asked to determine how it would have decided an appeal by Truscott, on the basis of the existing judicial record and any other evidence it received. The Supreme Court answered that question on May 4, 1967, and ruled that it would have dismissed Truscott's appeal.

On November 29, 2001 - some 42 years after his conviction - Truscott submitted an application for ministerial review. On January 24, 2002, the Minister of Justice appointed the Honourable Fred Kaufman, a former judge of the Quebec Court of Appeal, as an agent to investigate Truscott's application.

Kaufman conducted an exhaustive investigation of Truscott's application and provided a 700-page report to the Minister in the spring of 2004. The report presented new information about the case. On the basis of this new information, the Minister decided that there was a reasonable basis to conclude that a miscarriage of justice likely occurred. Accordingly, on October 28, 2004, the Minister referred Truscott's case to the Ontario Court of Appeal to be heard as a new appeal.

The Minister announced on August 12, 2005 that he would waive solicitor-client privilege with respect to Justice Kaufman's report and that a copy of the report would be released publicly once it had been edited to protect privacy interests.

In November 2005, the Department released an edited version of the investigative report. The executive summary of the report is available at http://canada.justice.gc.ca/en/ps/ccr/kaufman/index.html.

In June 2006, a five-member panel of the Ontario Court of Appeal heard three weeks of testimony. Final arguments are scheduled for January 2007.

Darcy Bjorge

Darcy Bjorge was tried at Wetaskiwin, Alberta, on the following charges:

1. that he was unlawfully in possession of a car having a value of more than $1,000, knowing that it had been obtained by the commission of a theft; and
2. that he unlawfully defrauded a victim of a sport utility vehicle having a value of over $1,000.

Bjorge was convicted of both charges on March 24, 1994. He was sentenced to three years in prison on the first charge and a concurrent three-year prison sentence on the second charge.

Bjorge submitted an application for ministerial review of both convictions on June 8, 2000.

In his decision of February 10, 2005, the Minister determined that there was a reasonable basis to conclude that a miscarriage of justice likely occurred in relation to Bjorge's conviction for possession of stolen property. He ordered a new trial on this charge before the Alberta Court of Queen's Bench. The Minister dismissed the part of the application relating to Bjorge's conviction for fraud.

On February 25, 2005, the Alberta Crown entered a stay of proceedings on the possession of stolen property charge.

Danny Wood

After a trial in Calgary, Alberta, Danny Wood was convicted on June 7, 1990 of the first-degree murder of Merla Laycock, and sentenced to life imprisonment with no eligibility for parole for 25 years. The Alberta Court of Appeal dismissed his appeal against conviction on January 30, 1992.

Approximately three and a half years after his conviction, Wood submitted an application for ministerial review. The Minister announced his decision on Wood's application on February 15, 2005. The investigation of the application found that the Crown had failed to disclose significant information to Wood, which could have had an impact on the fairness of the trial and the reliability of his conviction. Therefore, the Minister found that there was a reasonable basis to conclude that a miscarriage of justice likely occurred. His case was referred to the Alberta Court of Appeal to be heard as a new appeal.

A hearing is scheduled in the matter for November 2006.

James Driskell

On June 14, 1991, James Driskell was convicted of first-degree murder at Winnipeg, Manitoba. He was sentenced to life imprisonment without eligibility for parole for 25 years. His appeal to the Manitoba Court of Appeal was dismissed on December 7, 1992.

Driskell completed his application for ministerial review in October 2003. In November 2003, he applied for bail and became only the second person in Canadian legal history to be released pending a decision regarding an application for ministerial review. The Attorney General of Manitoba supported the granting of a remedy to Driskell and a return of his case to the court system.

On March 3, 2005, the Minister granted Driskell's application, quashed his murder conviction and ordered a new trial. The same day, the murder charge against Driskell was stayed, and the Government of Manitoba announced that there would be a public inquiry into his case.

The inquiry, headed by the Honourable Patrick LeSage, former Chief Justice of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice, began hearing evidence in July 2006. The terms of reference and other information about the Commission of Inquiry into Certain Aspects of the Trial and Conviction of James Driskell is available at http://www.driskellinquiry.ca/index.html.

The Year Ahead

The CCRG continues to work hard to process applications for ministerial review in a thorough and timely manner. A number of applications are expected to make their way to the Minister in 2006-2007 for a decision. In August 2006, the Minister referred two legal questions regarding the 1972 murder conviction of Romeo Phillion to the Ontario Court of Appeal. Phillion was convicted of non-capital murder in Ottawa on November 7, 1972 in the killing of Leopold Roy in August 1967.

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