Bien que la réhabilitation n’ait pas à être acquise au moment de la détermination de la peine, l’application du principe d’individualisation au profit du délinquant demeure subordonnée à la preuve d’un véritable processus de réhabilitation, lequel doit s’avérer particulièrement convaincant pour justifier un tempérament aux objectifs de dénonciation et de dissuasion

R. c. Muongholvilay, 2016 QCCA 232

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[24]        S’il y a lieu de distinguer les deux types de trafiquants, celui qui se présente comme un simple consommateur verra souvent sa criminalité dictée par un besoin irrésistible de consommation d’intoxicants. Cette situation renvoie normalement à l’objectif de réhabilitation, lequel demeure un bon outil de prévention et de protection sociale. La toxicomanie est une cause importante à l’origine de l’activité criminelle en général. Le processus de la détermination de la peine ne peut ignorer cette problématique, alors que le principe de l’individualisation de la peine permet d’y répondre en partie.

[25]        Si le trafic de stupéfiants conduit en théorie à l’infliction de peines sévères qui interpellent les objectifs de dénonciation et de dissuasion, la Cour n’a pas pour autant indiqué qu’en cette matière le principe de l’individualisation de la peine ne trouvait jamais application[18]. À titre d’exemple, une démarche probante de traitement de la toxicomanie s’attaquant à la source même du passage à l’acte et misant particulièrement sur une prise de conscience des torts causés, tant à l’égard d’une victime particulière qu’à l’égard de la communauté, ne peut être ignorée par le juge chargé d’infliger la peine. En ce sens, des peines axées sur la réhabilitation ou qui tendent à la favoriser ne sont jamais à exclure. Cet énoncé de principe ne tient évidemment pas compte des nombreux facteurs qui complètent le bagage psychosocial du toxicomane. Le juge doit donc s’en remettre à la preuve et évaluer l’ensemble des circonstances. C’est donc dire que le trafiquant-consommateur qui ne fait pas voir de reprise en main ne peut espérer recevoir un traitement moins lourd en raison du fait qu’il est un simple consommateur[19]. La réalité veut qu’il soit aussi un trafiquant.

[26]        La réhabilitation n’a évidemment pas à être acquise au moment de la détermination de la peine. Cependant, la preuve d’un véritable processus de réhabilitation, lequel doit être particulièrement convaincant[20], est dans la présente affaire tout simplement manquante. En l’espèce, l’ensemble des circonstances démontre plutôt qu’il n’y avait pas lieu de considérer l'intimé comme un simple trafiquant-consommateur.

Les objectifs d’exemplarité, de dissuasion et de réprobation peuvent céder le pas au critère de la réadaptation, lorsque ce dernier « fait l’objet d’une démonstration particulièrement convaincante »

Calderon c. R., 2015 QCCA 1573

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[26]        D’autre part, en matière de trafic de drogues dures comme la méthamphétamine[9], et à plus forte raison lorsqu’il est question de production de telles drogues en des quantités astronomiques, la jurisprudence reconnaît que les objectifs d’exemplarité, de dissuasion et de réprobation doivent primer. Lorsque la situation le justifie, une peine plus sévère peut être imposée afin de dissuader d'autres personnes de commettre une pareille infraction[10].

[27]        Il est vrai que les objectifs d’exemplarité, de dissuasion et de réprobation peuvent céder le pas au critère de la réadaptation, lorsque ce dernier « fait l’objet d’une démonstration particulièrement convaincante »[11]. Mais ici, tel n’est pas le cas. Le requérant n’a offert aucune preuve de réhabilitation et aucun rapport présentenciel n’a été préparé. Il a plutôt laissé le soin à son avocate de faire quelques remarques en tirant des inférences non appuyées.

Peine de 3 ans d'emprisonnement pour une possession de 1.2 kilo de cocaïne et 800 grammes de métamphétamine à des fins de trafic

R. v. Walters, 2025 ONCA 629

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[1]         The appellant pled guilty to two counts of possession for the purpose of trafficking involving almost 1.2 kilograms of cocaine and over 800 grams of methamphetamine. He also admitted to being in possession of other drugs and drug paraphernalia, all located during the execution of a search warrant at his condominium and related storage locker. Ammunition and $124,600 in cash were also found in those locations.

[2]         The parties did not have a joint position on sentence and so went into the sentencing hearing open, the Crown asking for a six-year sentence and the defence a two-year-less-a-day conditional sentence order. The trial judge imposed a three-year sentence. This is an appeal from that disposition.

[3]         The appellant argues that the trial judge erroneously relied on other offences to position the appellant’s level of involvement in the crimes. The appellant maintains that it was not open to the trial judge to consider, among other things, the seized cash, cocaine press, ammunition, and other drugs to determine his level of involvement. The appellant says that the trial judge was precluded from doing so because the trial Crown failed to prove those other offences.

[4]         Respectfully, we see matters differently.

[5]         It was the trial judge’s responsibility to grapple with the appellant’s level of involvement in the crimes he pled guilty to. The facts relied upon by the trial judge formed part of the agreed statement of facts. It was open to the trial judge to resort to those facts to determine the appellant’s level of involvement. Bearing in mind the serious offences involved, the trial judge determined that only a penitentiary sentence would be appropriate in this case.

[6]         With that said, the trial judge also carefully took into account the multiple mitigating factors at work. In the end she imposed a fit sentence, one that she described as necessary considering all of the circumstances. We see no error in her approach.

[7]         We would note, though, as did the trial judge, that the appellant has expressed genuine remorse for his crimes and seems to be well on the path toward rehabilitation, something that we commend him for and that the correctional authorities will undoubtedly take into account.

[8]         While leave to appeal sentence is granted, the appeal is dismissed.

Peine de 42 mois d'emprisonnement pour une possession de 450 grammes de cocaïne à des fins de trafic

R. v. Parker, 2025 ONCA 636

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[1]         The appellant pleaded guilty to possession of 450 grams of cocaine for the purposes of trafficking. He was subsequently sentenced to 42 months imprisonment, less 6 months Downes credit, less 12 days credit for presentence custody.[1]

[2]         The appellant alleges the trial judge made various errors in principle that render the sentence unfit. Without accepting that there were errors in principle, we are satisfied that the sentence imposed was entirely fit, and that the Downes credit given fell within the broad range of discretion afforded to the trial judge.

[3]         Leave to appeal sentence is granted, but the sentence appeal is dismissed.

La jurisprudence établit que partager une drogue, même socialement et sans contrepartie, constitue du trafic

R v Kernaz, 2019 SKCA 37

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[12]           The Crown submits the trial judge either applied the wrong legal test as to possession for the purpose of trafficking or did not correctly apply the legal test to the facts. It notes the definition of traffic in the CDSA includes give. It submits the case law demonstrates that where the accused admits he intends to share a controlled substance in his possession with others, he possesses it for the purpose of trafficking. The Crown says the trial judge erred when she convicted Mr. Kernaz of simple possession, as he intended to share both controlled substances with others.

[13]           Mr. Kernaz submits the Crown’s argument, properly framed, is that the trial judge erred in law by applying the wrong legal test for trafficking or that the trial judge misapprehended or failed to consider all relevant evidence on the issue of trafficking. It is Mr. Kernaz’s position the trial judge applied the correct legal test and considered all the evidence. He submits the trial judge’s reasons, when read as a whole, demonstrate she rejected his evidence entirely, including his testimony that he was going to share his drugs. He argues those findings of fact, including as to credibility, are not subject to review on appeal as they are not tainted by an error of law.

[14]           In my respectful opinion, the Crown is correct. Section 2(1) of the CDSA provides as follows:

Definitions

2(1) In this Act …

traffic means, in respect of a substance included in any of Schedules I to V,

(a) to sell, administer, give, transfer, transport, send or deliver the substance … .

[15]           There is ample authority for the proposition that give in this section includes sharing with others, including for social purposes, regardless of whether the accused will receive anything in return. In R v Rogalsky (1975), 1975 CanLII 835 (SK CA), 23 CCC 2d 399 (Sask CA) [Rogalsky], the accused said he purchased the cannabis in his possession for his own use, but would comply with the etiquette among drug users that one does not use drugs in the presence of others without offering to share. The trial judge held that the fact he possessed the drugs for his own use but would share them constituted trafficking under the Narcotic Control Act, RSC 1970, c N-l (repealed). The relevant definition of traffic was identical to that in s. 2(1) of the CDSA. Although the conviction under the Narcotic Control Act was not appealed, the Court of Appeal noted that the accused was guilty of that offence, but not the offence of possession of LSD for the purpose of trafficking under the Food and Drugs Act, RSC 1970, c F-27 (repealed), as that Act’s definition of trafficking did not contain the word give.

[16]           I note, by comparison, the decision in R v Beek, 2014 BCSC 971 [Beek]. In that case, the accused said he would sometimes share his cocaine with others at parties and on other occasions would not. The Crown argued his admission, that he was willing to share cocaine with others and might do so with the cocaine he possessed, was sufficient to make out the offence. Justice Butler commented that in many circumstances sharing the drugs will constitute trafficking and that “in some circumstances having a proven intention to share or deliver drugs will meet the definition” (at para 59). However, he found – in my view correctly – that the mere possibility that an accused may share a controlled substance while using it himself does not constitute possession for the purpose of trafficking.

[17]           In R v Taylor (1974), 1974 CanLII 1452 (BC CA), 17 CCC (2d) 36 (BCCA) [Taylor], the accused and five friends pooled their money and the accused purchased hashish (cannabis resin) in bulk, with the intention they would share it in equal portions. His appeal from conviction of possession for the purpose of trafficking was dismissed, with Carrothers J.A. commenting as follows (at 41):

The gravamen of the charge of trafficking is possession plus the intent or purpose of physically making the hashish available to others, regardless of ownership. The simple fact that it was economic for the purchase price to be collected in advance from the potential users of the narcotic and a bulk purchase made, thereby vesting in such users some claim to ownership and title and even a deemed joint possession by them, does not alter the nature of the physical act of giving, delivering or distributing the narcotic to another or others, which in itself constitutes the offence.

(Emphasis added)

[18]           This reasoning was approved in R v O’Connor (1975), 1975 CanLII 1496 (BC CA), 23 CCC (2d) 110 (BCCA) [O’Connor] (leave to appeal to the SCC refused, (1975), 23 CCC (2d) 110n), where that Court sat five judges to fully consider the reasoning in Taylor. In O’Connor, the accused possessed drugs purchased with his wife’s knowledge and consent using funds from a box in which they both deposited money for joint expenses. They were both drug users and the accused was carrying them home for their joint use. The Court of Appeal upheld his conviction of possession for the purpose of trafficking.

[19]           The approach adopted in Rogalsky, Taylor and O’Connor has been frequently applied. R v Ward, 2007 SKPC 142 [Ward], and R v Munro, 2003 SKPC 49, 231 Sask R 259 [Munro], demonstrate its application in Saskatchewan. In Ward, the accused possessed a small amount of marijuana that he purchased with the intention of sharing it with a friend. In Munro, the accused told police he and others, who had recently arrived at his home, “were just going to roll a joint” and that the others had not paid him because he was “a generous guy” (at para 5). The same approach is demonstrated in R v Menzies, 2017 BCSC 389 at paras 33–34, and R v Elliott, 2016 BCSC 393 at paras 47–51.

[20]           The facts in this case – assuming the trial judge accepted Mr. Kernaz’s admissions as true – are distinguishable from Beek, and fall on the Taylor–O’Connor side of the line. Mr. Kernaz did not say he was a generous soul who might share his ill fortune with others. He said he intended to share these drugs and was parked outside the very house where he intended to do so. If the trial judge concluded it was necessary, at least in the circumstances of this case, to prove there was a settled plan with a third person who was prepared to share the drugs, it is my respectful opinion that she erred in law.

[21]           Indeed, Mr. Kernaz did not suggest otherwise. Rather, he submits that the trial judge rejected the evidence as to his intentions. With respect, I do not agree. As counsel for Mr. Kernaz noted, the passages in the trial judge’s reasons, emphasized by the Crown, cannot be read in isolation. The correct approach was summarized by Cromwell J. in R v Villaroman, 2016 SCC 33, [2016] 1 SCR 1000, where he noted as follows:

[15] … it is important to remember that a trial judge’s reasons for judgment should not be “read or analyzed as if they were an instruction to a jury”: R. v. Morrissey (1995), 1995 CanLII 3498 (ON CA), 22 O.R. (3d) 514 (C.A.), at p. 525. Rather, the reasons must be “read as a whole, in the context of the evidence, the issues and the arguments at trial, together with ‘an appreciation of the purposes or functions for which they are delivered’”: R. v. Laboucan, 2010 SCC 12, [2010] 1 S.C.R. 397, at para. 16, citing R. v. R.E.M., 2008 SCC 51, [2008] 3 S.C.R. 3, at para. 16; see also R. v. C.L.Y., 2008 SCC 2, [2008] 1 S.C.R. 5, at para. 11.

[22]           The foundation for Mr. Kernaz’s argument is that the trial judge rejected all of his evidence. He emphasizes the trial judge’s finding of fact that he was not truthful. He submits that the impugned language about settled plans and willing participants is properly understood as an imperfect expression of the trial judge’s conclusion that she did not believe him.

[23]           With respect, that is not a fair reading of the reasons as a whole. The finder of fact may accept some, all or none of the evidence of a witness. That is so in relation to a witness who is found to lack credibility. The trial judge’s reasons demonstrate that is what occurred in this case. It is, in my view, clear the trial judge accepted Mr. Kernaz’s evidence that he had possession not only of the methamphetamine in his pocket, but the cocaine and the pipe in the console. Further, as noted above, she expressly found that he “drove to a house … where he intended to smoke crack with a friend …”. That statement is entirely unambiguous and can only be explained on the basis that she believed his evidence that he intended to share.

[24]           The trial judge nonetheless concluded that his intention to share his drugs did not make out the offence. I conclude that she followed the path suggested by the submission by defence counsel that “nothing really had been agreed upon” and that giving drugs was “just one possibility”. That submission reflected an erroneous view of the law. There is no need for an agreement.

La connaissance d’une substance contrôlée suffit à l’élément moral de possession en vue du trafic; la connaissance du type exact n’est pas requise

R v Stewart, 2020 ABCA 252

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[21]           In R v Blondin, the accused had brought a scuba tank into Canada from Japan containing 23 pounds of cannabis resin. His defense at trial was that he knew there was something illegal inside but he did not know exactly what it was. He was tried by a judge and jury and found not guilty. The Crown appealed.

[22]           In allowing the appeal and directing a new trial, the majority of the British Columbia Court of Appeal stated in part as follows:

Basing my opinion upon what I understand to be the principle enunciated in the several passages I have quoted, I am of the respectful opinion that the learned trial Judge erred when he instructed the jury that, in order to find Blondin guilty, they must find that he knew that the substance in the tank was cannabis resin. It would be sufficient to find, in relation to a narcotic, mens rea in its widest sense.

…

An essential ingredient of the offence is the importation of a narcotic and I do not consider that mens rea qua that offence is proven by an intention to commit an offence which, so far as Blondin’s admitted knowledge went, might have been one against the Customs Act, R.S.C. 1952, c. 58.                                 (emphasis added)

The Supreme Court of Canada dismissed the appeal: [1971] SCR v; (1972), 1971 CanLII 1411 (SCC), 1 WWR 479.

[23]           The Supreme Court of Canada in R v Kundeus, 1975 CanLII 161 (SCC), [1976] 2 SCR 272 at 289, 61 DLR (3d) 145, explicitly adopted the view that all that is required to secure a conviction for possession of a controlled substance is mens rea of a controlled substance generally. At page 289, the Court cited a paragraph from Blondin which stated in part that, “It would be sufficient to find, in relation to a narcotic, mens rea in its widest sense.”

[24]           In Kundeus the Supreme Court of Canada also approved the Ontario Court of Appeal decision in R v Custeau, 1971 CanLII 682 (ON CA), [1972] 2 OR 250, 6 CCC (2d) 179, when it held that that the accused who had trafficked in LSD, believing it to be mescaline, had the necessary mens rea to support a conviction for trafficking in LSD. Wilful blindness was not even considered in Kundeus. The Court went on to hold at page 291 that the result in Custeau had been the proper one notwithstanding that the Ontario Court of Appeal had erred in finding that at the time mescaline was a controlled drug rather than a drug mentioned in the Regulations under the Act which cannot be sold without a prescription. In Kundeus, the Supreme Court of Canada allowed the appeal and restored the conviction.

[25]           That a wide view of the mens rea requirement for possession of a controlled substance is all that is required is further supported by the Supreme Court of Canada in R v Aiello (1978), 1978 CanLII 2374 (ON CA), 38 CCC (2d) 485 at 488, 30 NR 559, aff’d 1979 CanLII 31 (SCC), [1979] 2 SCR 15, [1979] SCJ No 23, where it affirmed the Ontario Court of Appeal, which had held:

In our view, the trial judge should have directed the jury that if they were satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt that the respondent assumed control of the package, knowing that it contained a drug, the trafficking in which was prohibited, or was willfully blind to it being such a drug or was reckless as to whether it was such a prohibited drug, then the knowledge necessary to constitute the offence was established.                                                           (emphasis added)

In Aiello, the Supreme Court of Canada suggested that mens rea is established for the possession of a controlled substance by an accused knowing that the package in question contains a controlled substance.

[26]           More recently, the Ontario Court of Appeal in R v Lewis, 2012 ONCA 388 at para 12, citing Blondin, stated “that the mens rea for the offense of importing requires knowledge that the substance is a narcotic (now known as a “controlled substance”), although not necessarily knowledge of the exact type of narcotic.”

[27]           The Court then went on to refer to its earlier decision in R v Burgess, 1969 CanLII 467 (ON CA), [1970] 3 CCC 268, where it had held that “it mattered not” that the accused believed the substance in his possession was hashish, rather than opium, since possession of both were prohibited by statute.

[28]           Likewise, in R v Brady, 2017 NSCA 41, the Nova Scotia Court of Appeal at para 35, observed that “in Canada the law of possession does not require specific knowledge of the type of controlled drug. All that is required is knowledge of being in possession of a prohibited drug.”

[29]           The Court then went on to cite R v Aiello, R v Blondin, and R v Burgess, and held at para 39 that the jury only had to find that the appellant “knew the suitcase contained a substance in which trafficking is not allowed, rather than specific knowledge of what that drug actually was.”

[30]           It is clear from reading these cases that a finding of wilful blindness is not required to sustain a conviction, provided that the accused knew that he or she was in possession of a controlled substance.

[31]           In oral submission before this Court, Crown counsel argued that there was no need for the trial judge to have found wilful blindness in order to convict Ms Stewart on both counts. All that was required was that Ms Stewart had knowledge of being in possession of marijuana in order to sustain a conviction on the count of possession of cocaine for the purpose of trafficking. We agree. Ms Stewart’s knowledge that she was in possession of marijuana was sufficient to sustain the mens rea on the count of possession of cocaine.

[32]           It is true that this case differs from others in that Ms Stewart was charged with two counts of possession for the purpose of trafficking as opposed to one count where the accused believed he possessed a different (and less serious) substance than was in fact the case. However, in principle this makes no difference. Ms Stewart’s knowledge that she was in possession of one controlled substance (marijuana) is sufficient as a matter of law to sustain a conviction for possession of another controlled substance (cocaine).

[33]           Accordingly, the cross-appeal is dismissed. Under the circumstances, there is no need to consider the issue of whether or not Ms Stewart was wilfully blind regarding the presence of cocaine.