L'erreur quant à la portée d'un permis de production de cannabis à des fins médicales relève de l'erreur de droit et non pas de l'erreur de fait

R. v. Fan, 2021 ONCA 674

Lien vers la décision

Existence of a Licence vs. Terms of a Licence

[60]      Finally, the appellants rely on the previous decisions of this court in Darquea, R. v. Johnson, 2016 ONCA 654, and R. v. Pilgrim, 2017 ONCA 309, 347 C.C.C. (3d) 141. All three cases involved mistakes about the existence of licences or authorizations, not about their scope or application.

[61]      In Darquea, the accused mistakenly believed that the head of the laboratory where he worked was licenced to produce the drug in question. In Johnson, the accused mistakenly believed that a PPL existed for a property when none existed; in Pilgrim, the accused laboured under the mistaken belief that her spouse had a drug prescription under the Narcotic Control Regulations, C.R.C., c. 1041, when no such prescription existed. All three scenarios amounted to mistakes of fact.

[62]      By contrast, in this case, the appellants were mistaken as to the reach of the licences they knew existed and, as such, were mistaken as to the applicable law. As this court aptly put it in Vu, at para. 67 (discussing Johnson), “a mistake as to the terms of one’s license is a mistake of law, not a mistake of fact.”