Le fait de croire en une possible ratification de la part d'une personne habilitée n'est pas un moyen de défense recevable en matière de fraude

The Queen v. Lemire, 1964 CanLII 52 (SCC), [1965] SCR 174

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The effect of the second paragraph, above quoted, may be rather bluntly summarized in this way. Because the augmentation of Lemire's income by the filing of false expense accounts was suggested and approved by the Attorney-General and Prime Minister of the Province, Lemire, who deliberately filed false documents and thereby obtained payments from the provincial public funds, could not be held guilty of fraud, because he could reasonably anticipate that the fraudulent system would later be somehow validated. In other words, there is no intent to defraud within the requirement of s. 323(1) if the accused person, while deliberately committing an act which is clearly fraudulent, expects that that which he is doing may, at a later date, be validated. To me the very statement of this proposition establishes its error in law.

To me the idea that it is an answer to a charge of fraud to say that the fraud was suggested by the superior of the accused is completely erroneous in law, as is also the proposition that the Province of Quebec and the public of Quebec were not defrauded by paying, out of public funds, false expense accounts, merely because Lemire's salary was less than what he and his superiors thought it ought to be.