Authorities Part II: The Record

Executive Summary
 

This Case Law Review examines proceedings contemplated at the Litigation page and its sub-pages.  The record reveals a layered failure of constitutional guardrails designed to ensure openness, procedural fairness, and access to justice.
 

In reviewing the applicable jurisprudence, the core conclusion is that the steps taken across both jurisdictions create a compelling appearance of systemic miscarriage of justice, satisfying threshold tests for extraordinary corrective relief.  Common sense suggests the same.
 

A. Overview of Proceedings
 

Materially related to the Zersetzung accounts, a prima facie case of shareholder fraud concerning the Director of a Canadian Commercial and Government Entity ("CAGE") was reversed into a $445,489.50 award of special costs to the same perpetrator (737.7 hours vs. 867 recorded minutes in simple hearings under 40 minutes apiece).  This disposition remained unchecked despite Canadian Constitutional Law and jurisprudence.  The scope, consistency, and characteristics of this scandal, involving multiple courts and police agencies across three provinces, precludes consideration of the CAGE Director as an independent perpetrator.  Because one relatively unknown CEO cannot be expected to capture an adjudicative framework in two provinces to serve his interests alone, an inference of third-party tampering is required (R v. Villaroman). 

 

Throughout the proceedings, key material evidence—shareholder agreements, corporate records (CSRs), and anomalous billing—was consistently sidelined in favor of an enforcement-first track, and pushed through a comity-driven conveyer belt, each relying on the last decision in a conclusory fashion.  Appellate venues reinforced the same errors rather than correcting them, and police refused investigation.
 

Three linked failures structure the pattern:
 

1. Systemic Opacity
   
   Broad, court-initiated sealing orders were imposed without applying the Dagenais/Mentuck–Sierra Club requirement of necessity and minimal impairment, and in some cases in the absence of a hearing.  Courts in both provinces (BC and NS) adopted public information asymmetry.  Rather than enabling independent fact verification, the record abused comity and concealment.
    

2. Financial Gatekeeping and Weaponization
   
   Disproportionate security-for-costs orders converted constitutional appeal rights into a de facto “pay-to-play” regime.  These amounts far exceeded accepted benchmarks (such as Power v. Power), erecting financial barriers to correcting factual errors and advancing constitutional claims.  Solicitor-client costs in BC billed simple chambers hearings in excess of Canada's average annual salary.  
    

3. Manipulative Procedural Asymmetry and Coercion
   
   Full evidentiary testing and discovery were neutralized by subsequent summary orders, procedural foreclosure, manipulated draft orders, and conclusory deferral judgments, while enforcement culminated in contempt and custody.  This is inconsistent with authorities like Carey, Teamsters, and Chong, which require that judicial discretion be genuine, proportionate, and least intrusive.
    

In aggregate, these characteristics occasion serious consideration of project-centric third-party interests.

B. Key Findings: Appearance of a Systemic Miscarriage of Justice
 

Taken cumulatively, the milestones across the NSCA and BCSC show a persistent failure to grapple with material facts.  The record engages multiple constitutional and common law thresholds:
 

• Open Court Principle Violations
  
  Sealing orders in NS and BC contravene settled open court doctrine as recently restated in CBC v. Named Person (2024 SCC 21), which rejects blanket secrecy and requires tailored, justified restrictions.
   

• Access-to-Justice Barriers
  
  Security-for-costs orders were imposed while serious over-billing concerns were live, engaging Beals v. Saldanha’s fraud and natural justice exceptions.  Costs and security escalated even as proof of a +9,000% solicitor-client billing delta emerged (737.7 hours vs. 867 minutes: "the billing delta", like the Boeing 737-7 passenger jet).
   

• Failure to Grapple with Evidence
  
  Courts advanced enforcement while ignoring probative shareholder, CSR, billing, and BC procedural records.  This violates the duty to address key facts under Vavilov and the requirement of documentary coherence in Bradshaw v. Stenner.
   

• Abuse of Process
  
  Summary dismissals and the use of contempt/custody as an enforcement lever create the “pre-wired outcome” warned against in Babos and Tobiass.  The delayed recognition of serious health evidence further offends Baker’s command to be “alert, alive and sensitive” to vulnerability.
   

Viewed together, the deviations from core standards are “clear, cogent and convincing” in the McDougall sense and support a finding of a serious appearance of injustice.  Discovery, openness, proportionality, credibility testing, and fairness were each compromised in ways that predictably produced an enforcement-first outcome while the underlying merits stayed untouched.
 

C. Proposed Corrective Relief
 

The scale and depth of the systemic failure call for remedies beyond minor corrections to reasons.  This review concludes that extraordinary corrective relief is required to restore the integrity of the process:
 

1. Vacating Coercive Orders
   
   All contempt, custody, and disproportionate security-for-costs orders should be vacated.
    

2. Unsealing with Tailoring
   
   All blanket sealing orders should be lifted and replaced, if necessary, with narrowly tailored redactions that satisfy the CBC v. Named Person and Sherman Estate standards.
    

3. Publicly-Transparent Neutral Fact-Finding
   
   A neutral mechanism (e.g., Special Master or equivalent) should be appointed to test the sidelined merits issues (shareholder status, CSR anomalies, billing practices, procedure) on a full evidentiary footing, in a public setting, independent of the prior summary track.
    

4. Comprehensive Police Investigation
   
   A full police and regulatory investigation is required into: (i) the near-certain likelihood of state-adjacent assurances behind the billing/sealing pattern; (ii) the Osler, Hoskin, & Harcourt LLP trust accounts; (iii) related psychological operations, surveillance, and neurotech components; and (iv) the role of family-adjacent actors and other intermediaries.
    

Annotated Chronological Milestones

 

September 18, 2020 – M&A Transaction Notice
 

A DocuSign package for a proposed M&A transaction is circulated with an ~8-hour overnight deadline.  The SPA and cover materials refer to a July 25, 2016 shareholders’ agreement, although the operative “Agreement to be Bound” for the minority shareholder is dated July 27, 2016.  A separate Share Transfer and Power of Attorney in favour of 1260706 B.C. Ltd., denominated “For Value Received,” is executed but not clearly linked to the SPA or any specified consideration.  The SPA schedules list 41 named employee vendors plus option-holders, while later CSRs and the FY2020 audit adopt a one-year-only derecognition policy under which 2020 transfers do not appear on the register.
 

This creates an immediate misalignment between the transaction paper trail and formal share records, setting up the later “cancellation vs. concealment” and access-to-records disputes that drive the BC litigation and downstream NS enforcement.
 

Applicable Legal Framework
 

• BCE Inc. v. 1976 Debentureholders
  Directors must treat affected securityholders fairly, including through process and information. An overnight “sign-or-else” M&A deadline, built on an incorrect governing agreement, undermines a minority shareholder’s ability to assess the transaction and access BCE-style remedies.
   

• Bradshaw v. Stenner
  Credibility and reliability turn on internal and external consistency and motive to fabricate. The July 25 vs. July 27 agreement dates are precisely the sort of documentary conflict Bradshaw requires a court to scrutinize, especially where they affect inclusion/exclusion from a major transaction.
   

• Bhasin v. Hrynew
  The duty of honest performance prohibits knowingly misleading a counterparty in contractual performance. Circulating deal documents that misidentify the governing agreement—then insisting on an overnight decision—engages this duty.
   

• Theratechnologies Inc. v. 121851 Canada Inc.
  Securities law depends on timely, accurate disclosure of material facts. Contradictory core documents (wrong agreement; standalone “For Value Received” transfer not clearly tied to the SPA) create a material information deficit for a minority shareholder.
   

• Vancouver Sun (Re)
  Openness and intelligible records are fundamental. In a governance context, corporate records must be clear enough to permit verification; an unexplained governing-agreement discrepancy is inconsistent with this transparency.
   

• Hercules Managements Ltd. v. Ernst & Young
  Audited statements and related records exist to inform shareholder oversight. Where transaction records are inconsistent and later “derecognition” policies obscure equity events, shareholders cannot exercise the governance oversight Hercules contemplates.
   

December 4, 2020 – Cancellation Notice
 

A notice is sent stating that the September 18 M&A transaction is “off” because a partner has supposedly terminated its agreement with the issuer.  The notice supplies a partner-termination timeline that is inaccurate but conveniently positions the breakdown almost exactly outside the two-year basic limitation period under BC’s Limitation Act.  The communication also warns the minority shareholder not to contact the sender’s legal counsel.
 

The notice (i) recasts the situation as a dead deal driven by a third party, (ii) shapes the shareholder’s perception of when any claim accrued, and (iii) discourages independent legal advice—all against the backdrop of already-misaligned M&A documents.
 

Applicable Legal Framework
 

• Limitation Act, S.B.C. 2012, c. 13, ss. 6, 12, 21
  
  The two-year basic limitation runs from discovery; fraudulent concealment and s. 12 (fraud/trust) can postpone that clock.  A factually wrong termination date that “solves” a limitation problem is properly scrutinized as an attempt to manipulate discoverability.
   

• Presidential MSH Corporation v. Marr Foster & Co. LLP
  
  Limitation periods are part of the fairness architecture.  When a potential defendant’s communications shape the plaintiff’s understanding of timelines, courts examine whether those communications undermine fairness.  Back-dating the partner termination to neutralize claims engages that concern.
   

• 1582235 Ontario Ltd. v. Ontario; Entreprises Sibeca
  
  Bad faith includes conduct “so markedly inconsistent” with the governing legal context that it cannot be viewed as good faith.  Providing an incorrect termination date aligned with limitation periods while instructing the shareholder not to contact counsel is difficult to reconcile with good faith.
   

• Wallace v. United Grain Growers; Styles v. AIMCo
  
  Termination-style communications must be candid and honest.  Misstating material facts at the point of “quasi-termination” of a transaction, while discouraging legal advice, violates the duty of honest performance.
   

• Fraudulent Concealment (equity)
  
  Where a party deliberately misleads another about key dates or rights to make a claim appear stale, courts may toll the limitation period.  The precision with which the wrong date tracks statutory limits, combined with a “do not contact my counsel” warning, is consistent with a lulling/concealment pattern.
   

• Frame v. Smith (fiduciary indicia)
  
  In closely held corporations, controlling insiders often satisfy fiduciary indicia.  A cancellation notice mixing threats with misstatements about key dates raises fiduciary-duty concerns, not just contractual ones.
   

February 8, 2021 – Anomalous Health Incident
 

During an active period of corporate dispute and harassment reporting, the subject experiences sudden, severe localized pain at home during a snowstorm, requiring an ER visit.  Hospital records document intense pain, unusual symptoms, and logistical difficulty reaching care.  Morphine is administered enroute by ambulance despite an allergy history, and unusual sensations are reported afterward.  The incident is later raised, within a broader pattern of stalking/harassment, as potentially consistent with DEW or other external interference (ie., "havana syndrome").

​

Whatever its precise cause, the event is an objectively documented, serious health incident meaningfully engaged with an evidence-based metanarrative.  It becomes legally relevant when (i) police decline to obtain CCTV or explore non-routine causation, and (ii) courts later consider coercive remedies without ever requiring or analyzing the underlying ER records.
 

Applicable Legal Framework
 

• Baker v. Canada
  
  Decision-makers must be “alert, alive and sensitive” to affected individuals’ vulnerabilities. Ignoring a documented serious health incident when imposing contempt, security, or other coercive measures is the opposite of the contextual sensitivity Baker requires.
   

• Hill v. Hamilton-Wentworth Regional Police Services Board
  
  Police owe a duty of care in conducting investigations. Once notified of a serious and unusual ER-documented incident linked to ongoing harassment, reasonable care would normally include obtaining ER records and obvious CCTV or environmental evidence. A blanket refusal is inconsistent with Hill’s standard.
   

• R. v. Loewen
  
  Reasonable-grounds and proportionality assessments rely on the “totality of the circumstances.” Treating the February 8 incident in isolation, rather than as part of a cumulative pattern of harassment and anomaly, is contrary to this holistic approach.
   

• R. v. McNeil
  
  Relevant information in police hands must be disclosed to support fair, accurate proceedings. ER and occurrence records are clearly relevant to vulnerability, risk, and credibility. Adjudicating coercive measures without insisting on that record frustrates the truth-seeking function.
   

• Fontaine v. British Columbia (Official Administrator)
  
  Circumstantial evidence is weighed with direct evidence to decide if a prima facie case exists. A documented ER visit for an abnormal event, combined with other harassment indicators, can reach a prima facie threshold that “something is wrong,” shifting the burden to authorities to offer a coherent explanation rather than simple denial.
   

April 6, 2021 – Shareholder Records Request
 

After discovering anomalies in the capital structure and transaction history, the subject makes a formal written request under the BCBCA for core shareholder records: the central and branch securities registers, share register, and related records.  Despite mandatory inspection rights, the request is ignored.  No access is provided, forcing further steps in an informational vacuum.
 

Applicable Legal Framework
 

• Business Corporations Act, S.B.C. 2002, c. 57, ss. 42–46, 50
  
  Companies must keep core records at the records office and allow inspection/copying by shareholders.  A complete non-response is a statutory breach, not business discretion; s. 50 provides a remedy by court order.
   

• Invermere Hotel (1977) Ltd. v. Pottruff
  
  Inspection rights exist so shareholders can monitor management.  Obstructing those rights, particularly amid concrete concerns, supports oppression-style relief even before a full merits hearing.
   

• Primer Enterprises Ltd. v. Westmore Distributors Ltd.
  
  Systematic denial of access to core records can be “oppressive” or “unfairly prejudicial.”  Where management controls all information and uses that control to freeze out a minority, the oppression remedy is engaged.
   

• BCE Inc. v. 1976 Debentureholders
  
  Reasonable expectations include that statutory inspection rights will be honoured and records will be sufficient to assess fair treatment. Ignoring a proper records request defeats those expectations.
   

• Theratechnologies; Vancouver Sun (Re)
  
  Modern investor-protection and openness doctrines stress that regimes depend on timely, non-misleading information.  Withholding basic records deepens information asymmetry and undermines both governance and any later court process that must rely on those records.
   

May 3, 2021 – BC Registrar Orders Disclosure
 

On May 3, 2021, the Registrar orders the company to produce the CSRs and derecognition policy.  The CSRs show no shareholder activity after April 14, 2020, despite dozens of employees, option-holders, and participants in the September 2020 M&A process.  The following day, the company removed its public employee roster web page.
 

For an objective observer, a CSR freeze post-April 2020, an M&A process involving 40+ employee vendors, and deletion of public-facing information together present a major governance red flag.  The Registrar’s order confirms that inspection rights were breached; the disclosure raises more questions than it answers.
 

Applicable Legal Framework
 

• BCE Inc. v. 1976 Debentureholders
  
  Shareholder protection depends on access to accurate information sufficient to assess fair treatment.  A CSR that goes blank at a critical period creates an unacceptable information deficit.
   

• Bradshaw v. Stenner
  
  The four Bradshaw factors support an inference of purposeful opacity: (i) internal inconsistency (a frozen CSR in an active period); (ii) temporal proximity to the M&A; (iii) motive to fabricate (preventing verification of holdings); and (iv) corroboration via the deletion of the “Team” page.
   

• Slattery (Trustee of) v. Slattery; R. v. Jarvis
  
  CRA records can be obtained and serve as a reliable external cross-check on equity transactions.  Characterizing CRA discovery as unnecessary despite a documented CSR freeze disregards their evidentiary importance.
   

• Primer Enterprises; BCBCA s. 46
  
  The sequence—denied access, Registrar order, anomalous records—is the classic oppression pattern.  The Registrar’s intervention confirms breach of statutory rights and justifies further judicial scrutiny.
   

July 9, 2021 – Financial Statements Anomalies
 

The subject requests FY2020 financial statements.  The audited statements show an audit report signed June 25, 2021, while corporate counsel states on July 9, 2021 that the company is “still collecting signatures” on the same documents, and whereas, the CPA firm audit report is signed and dated June 25th, 2021.  FY2020 numbers show significant operational deltas from prior years and introduce a new derecognition policy not present previously.  The policy derecognizes any and all share transfers within FY 2020, effectively concealing any share transfer or SPA within that calendar year.  The policy sits comfortably with the CSR vacancies and the remainder of the irregular shareholder record corpus.
 

Applicable Legal Framework
 

• CPA Code of Professional Conduct (BC), Rules 205 & 206
  
  CPAs must not associate with misleading statements and must comply with professional standards, including proper dating and documentation.  A June 25 audit report date inconsistent with a July 9 “still collecting signatures” account engages concerns under both rules.
   

• IAS 8 (Accounting Policies, Changes in Accounting Estimates and Errors)
  
  Policies must be applied consistently; changes must improve reliability/relevance and be properly disclosed.  A one-year derecognition policy appearing only in FY2020 and aligned with disputed transactions is inconsistent with IAS 8’s consistency and disclosure obligations.
   

• BCE; Bradshaw
  
  Shareholders reasonably expect coherent, transparent financials.  A novel derecognition policy plus conflicting descriptions of audit completion and the CSR records undermines both the BCE fairness expectations and the Bradshaw reliability analysis.
   

• Central Trust Co. v. Rafuse; Hercules
  
  Professionals (auditors and counsel) owe a duty of reasonable care; audited statements are intended to support shareholder oversight. Backdated or opaque audit processes and policy changes directly impair that oversight function and raise classic negligence and governance concerns.
   

July 19, 2021 – BC Legal Counsel Retained
 

By July 2021, voluntary efforts to obtain accurate records had failed; the Registrar-ordered disclosure showed a post-April 2020 CSR freeze and the FY2020 derecognition policy.  The subject retains a BC law firm to: (i) confirm the equity position through BCBCA inspection mechanisms; and (ii) pursue oppression-style remedies, including a potential buyback, if the conduct is oppressive, unfairly prejudicial, or unfairly disregards the subject’s interests.
 

From this point, the file shifts from informal efforts to a formal solicitor–client relationship with attendant fiduciary and professional duties.
 

Applicable Legal Framework
 

• BCBCA, ss. 50, 227–228
  
  These provisions enable court-ordered records production and oppression remedies.  Once voluntary disclosure failed and anomalies were evident, engaging these mechanisms through counsel was the only realistic way to protect the investment.
   

• BCE Inc. v. 1976 Debentureholders
  
  Retaining counsel is a direct attempt to vindicate reasonable expectations (accurate records; fair treatment) via the oppression remedy.
   

• Strother v. 3464920 Canada Inc.; Central Trust
  
  The solicitor–client relationship is fiduciary; lawyers owe loyalty and a duty to exercise the care of a reasonably competent practitioner.  From July 19 onward, failures to analyze CSR anomalies, pursue BCBCA remedies, or obtain informed instructions are assessed against these duties.
   

• Theratechnologies; Primer Enterprises
  
  Modern investor-protection regimes are flexible and remedial.  Retaining counsel aimed to access that flexibility—records orders, buyback, corrective relief—in response to deliberate opacity.
   

July 23, 2021 – Cross-Canada Relocation
 

On July 23, 2021, the subject abruptly relocates across Canada.  The home is listed and effectively liquidated; a one-year lease is signed in the destination city.  Neither act served a practical or psychological purpose.  BC counsel was likewise retained to makage the matter on the subject's behalf.  Compared with a lifelong history of stability and risk-averse decisions, this combination (rapid move, home sale, fixed lease, no conventional driver) is a marked behavioural outlier.
 

In 2022, and view of an emerging picture, the subject advances the hypothesis that such outliers may be consistent with external cognitive interference or “remote neuromodulation.”  The same is well grounded in UN HRC resolutions, the related evidentiary context, and known enabling technologies, while removing less likely theories of causality under Villaroman.
 

Applicable Legal Framework
 

• R. v. Villaroman, 2016 SCC 33, [2016] 1 S.C.R. 1000
  
  Circumstantial inferences must be grounded in proven facts and be reasonable.  Less likely inferences can be displaced, and novel inferences can be accepted if no other explanation fits.  The relocation is one component in a circumstantial matrix (health incident, CSR anomalies, retainer, harassment) that supports an inference of cognitive tampering in accordance with the characteristics and the UN reports. 
   

•  Sherman Estate v. Donovan, 2021 SCC 25, [2021] 2 S.C.R. 75
  
  Courts assess “serious risk” holistically (p. 97-98).  Any later sealing or protective-order analysis must situate the relocation within the broader pattern of harm and vulnerability; it cannot be compartmentalized away.
   

• Geffen v. Goodman Estate
  
  Undue influence presumptions arise where a relationship allows domination and the transaction is not readily explicable by ordinary motives. Selling a home, moving across the country, and taking a long lease without economic or family drivers is a “not readily explicable” outcome that invites an explanation and may shift the evidentiary burden regarding influence.
   

• Bhasin v. Hrynew
  
  If relocation decisions were materially shaped by pressures arising from the shareholder dispute or related contracts, and counterparties knew or ought to have known this, then relying on the apparent voluntariness of the move while concealing these dynamics risks breaching the duty of honest performance.
   

• Saadati v. Moorhead; R. v. Malmo-Levine; s. 7 Charter
  
  Mental injury and serious psychological disturbance can ground legal consequences even without a DSM label.  The relocation sequence amid harassment and financial distress is cogent evidence of impact on security of the person that courts and investigators must engage, not dismiss as self-inflicted.
   

• UN HRC Neurotechnology Materials (A/HRC/57/61; A/HRC/58/58; A/HRC/RES/58/6)
  
  These instruments now formally recognize risks to cognitive liberty, mental privacy, and psychological continuity from emerging neurotechnologies.  They do not prove what occurred in 2021, but they confirm that the interference risks described are legally and institutionally recognized.  Courts and investigators cannot plausibly treat the cognitive-interference hypothesis as frivolous; it aligns with risks UN bodies have flagged as requiring heightened rights-sensitive scrutiny.
   

August 3, 2021 – Counsel’s Breach of Confidentiality
 

On August 3, 2021, the subject's BC counsel filed materials that were expressly subject to a shareholder confidentiality agreement onto the public court registry, without the subject's knowledge or instructions, without seeking a sealing order, and without directions from the court.  Only after the damage was done did counsel seek a consensual sealing order.  One week after a consensual sealing order was entered, opposing counsel served a default notice for fees (automatic buy-back for pennies).  The subject's counsel claimed the opposing party acted in bad faith, and advised it would withdraw the retainer.  Opposing counsel said it was "playing hardball", while the parties were in settlement talks, and after a consensual sealing order remedy had been entered.  There are strong optics of collusion here.
 

Applicable Legal Framework
 

• Central Trust Co. v. Rafuse, [1986] 2 S.C.R. 147
  
  Confirms that lawyers owe a duty to exercise the care, skill, and knowledge of a reasonably competent solicitor and may be liable in both contract and tort.  Publicly filing confidential materials without authority, protection, or warning is a straightforward breach of that standard; the harm (loss of confidentiality) is obvious and foreseeable.
   

• Folland v. Reardon, 2005 CanLII 1403 (ON CA)
  
  The Ontario Court of Appeal recognizes that breaches of solicitor–client confidentiality can ground both negligence and fiduciary claims. Confidentiality is a foundational aspect of the relationship; a breach can justify reopening or adjusting proceedings tainted by that disclosure.
   

• Strother v. 3464920 Canada Inc., 2007 SCC 24, [2007] 2 S.C.R. 177 at para. 40
  
  The Supreme Court underscores that the core fiduciary duty of a lawyer is loyalty, which includes confidentiality, candour, and avoiding conflicts.  Using or exposing client information in a way that disadvantages the client—then pivoting to fee pressure and withdrawal—sits squarely within the mischief Strother seeks to prevent.
   

• R. v. Murray, 2017 ONCA 393
  
  Although a criminal case, Murray stresses that termination of a retainer at a critical stage raises serious fairness concerns.  Here, the retainer collapses immediately after counsel’s own confidentiality breach and rushed “damage control” sealing, which supports the inference that counsel’s misstep—not client “bad faith”—precipitated the crisis.
   

• Federation of Law Societies of Canada, Model Code of Professional Conduct, rr. 3.3 & 3.6
   

  • Rule 3.3 requires strict confidentiality absent informed consent or legal compulsion.
     

  • Rule 3.6 requires fair and reasonable fees and prohibits coercive financial pressure.
    
    Filing confidential materials openly, then almost immediately issuing a default notice in a high-stress, high-stakes file, engages both sections of the rules

 

August 27, 2021 – Consensual Sealing During Settlement
 

On August 27, 2021, a consensual sealing/redaction order was made while settlement negotiations were underway.  The order targeted specific commercial and shareholder materials; it did not seal the entire file, and on its face aligned with a narrow, temporary confidentiality rationale during an ongoing resolution process.
 

In hindsight, some of the sealed materials—particularly the CEO’s affidavit evidence—were later shown or alleged to be materially inaccurate or perjured.  What began as a limited commercial-protection measure evolved into a functional shield for misleading evidence.
 

Applicable Legal Framework
 

• Dagenais v. Canadian Broadcasting Corp., [1994] 3 S.C.R. 835 and R. v. Mentuck, 2001 SCC 76, [2001] 3 S.C.R. 442
  
  Set the governing test: limits on openness must be (1) necessary to prevent a serious risk to the administration of justice, and (2) proportionate, with salutary effects outweighing deleterious effects on openness.  Temporary, targeted redactions during active settlement can meet this test; long-term secrecy protecting perjured evidence cannot.
   

• Sierra Club of Canada v. Canada (Minister of Finance), 2002 SCC 41, [2002] 2 S.C.R. 522 at para. 53
  
  Extends Dagenais/Mentuck to civil confidentiality orders.  Any order must protect an important interest (e.g., legitimate commercial sensitivity) and be as limited as possible, favoring redactions over blanket sealing.  Once it emerges that sealed materials may include perjury, the “important interest” shifts to exposing, not concealing, that evidence.
   

• Sherman Estate v. Donovan, 2021 SCC 25, [2021] 2 S.C.R. 75
  
  Confirms that court records are presumptively public and that any restriction must meet a serious-risk test and be proportionate and minimally impairing.  Commercial or settlement optics can justify only narrow, time-limited secrecy. Sealing that effectively hides perjury conflicts with Sherman Estate’s core logic.
   

• R. v. E.(O.N.), 2001 SCC 77, [2001] 2 S.C.R. 459 at para. 27
  
  Recognizes courts’ inherent jurisdiction to address perjury and abuse of process.  Courts cannot allow their procedures—including sealing orders—to operate as a shelter for sworn falsehoods.
   

• Vancouver Sun (Re), 2004 SCC 43, [2004] 2 S.C.R. 332 at para. 25
  
  Emphasizes that parties cannot “contract out” of the open court principle; even fully consensual sealing requires ongoing judicial justification.
   

• Gold v. Gold, 2020 ONSC 26
  
  Confirms that consent orders can be set aside where obtained or maintained through fraud, misrepresentation, or non-disclosure.  The same logic applies to consent-based sealing: if secrecy persists in part because the court was never told the sealed material is false, the foundation for that order is compromised

 

September 13, 2021 – Notice of Default and Retainer Termination
 

On September 13, 2021—barely a week after the August 27 sealing order—BC counsel issued a notice of default for fees and effectively terminated the retainer.  At that point:
 

• the subject’s equity position (~$240,000 on paper at the company's pre-seal settlement offer) had been reduced to roughly $1,260 in liquidity;

• counsel had recently filed confidential materials publicly; and

• “damage control” sealing had just occurred.
   

Counsel’s correspondence described the subject as acting in “bad faith” and opposing counsel as merely “playing hardball,” framing the client as the problem just as the subject was forced into self-representation.
 

Applicable Legal Framework
 

• 1582235 Ontario Ltd. v. Ontario, 2020 ONSC 1279 at para. 127
  
  Drawing on Entreprises Sibeca Inc. v. Frelighsburg (Municipality), 2004 SCC 61, [2004] 3 S.C.R. 304, the court defines bad faith as conduct “so markedly inconsistent with the relevant legislative context” that it cannot reasonably be viewed as in good faith. Here, the relevant context includes fiduciary duties, confidentiality, and BCBCA oppression/inspection rights.  Casting the subject as the “bad faith” actor immediately after counsel’s breach and during a financial collapse shaped by that breach is difficult to reconcile with this standard.
   

• R. v. Murray, 2017 ONCA 393
  
  Highlights that withdrawal at a critical stage engages fairness and the integrity of proceedings.  The subject’s transition to self-representation was not voluntary but followed counsel’s error and fee pressure; this heightens the fairness concerns going forward.
   

• Strother v. 3464920 Canada Inc., 2007 SCC 24 at para. 40
  
  The core duty of loyalty requires lawyers to put the client’s interests ahead of their own within the retainer’s scope.  Where counsel’s confidentiality breach helped create the financial and procedural crisis used to justify withdrawal, Strother supports an inference that responsibility lies with counsel, not the client.
   

• Folland v. Reardon, 2005 CanLII 1403 (ON CA) and Central Trust Co. v. Rafuse, [1986] 2 S.C.R. 147
  
  Together, these cases support that a breach of confidentiality and negligent performance can taint subsequent steps and create compensable harm.  The close temporal link between the August 3 breach, the August 27 sealing, and the September 13 default/withdrawal raises a serious causation question.
   

• Pintea v. Johns, 2017 SCC 23, [2017] 1 S.C.R. 470 at para. 4
  
  The Supreme Court endorses principles requiring courts to treat self-represented litigants with heightened fairness and accommodation.  This obligation is even stronger where self-representation is forced by circumstances—including counsel withdrawal after a professional breach—rather than chosen.
   

Result: By September 13, 2021, the subject is involuntarily self-represented in a shareholder dispute, with severe financial and procedural disadvantages materially shaped by prior counsel’s conduct.

 

September 22, 2021 – Settlement Affidavit Perjury
 

On September 22, 2021, the company’s CEO swore a settlement-stage affidavit containing demonstrably false statements about (i) the status and identity of key technology partners and (ii) the treatment of former employees and option-holders in the Central Securities Register (CSR).  These statements were contradicted by existing documents and later disclosures. 
 

The affidavit was used to support the narrative that the settlement and file “closure” were fair and complete, at a moment when the subject was self-represented and financially constrained.
 

Applicable Legal Framework
 

• R. v. E.(O.N.), 2001 SCC 77, [2001] 2 S.C.R. 459 at para. 27
  
  The Supreme Court confirms that perjury goes to the heart of the administration of justice and that courts have inherent jurisdiction to address it whenever it arises, including in civil and settlement contexts.
   

• Criminal Code, R.S.C. 1985, c. C-46, s. 131
  
  Defines perjury as making a false statement under oath, knowing it to be false, with intent to mislead, in a judicial proceeding. Settlement-stage affidavits fall squarely within “judicial proceeding.”
   

• Groia v. Law Society of Upper Canada, 2018 SCC 27, [2018] 1 S.C.R. 772 at para. 71
  
  Reaffirms that lawyers owe duties to the administration of justice and cannot facilitate, tolerate, or quietly exploit false evidence. Where an affidavit is demonstrably wrong on central points:
   

  • the CEO’s own counsel must not exploit that falsity;

  • opposing counsel who discover it must squarely put it before the court; and

  • the court must address it before relying on the affidavit as a settlement foundation.
     

• Liverant v. Jabre, 2018 ONSC 6404
  
  Holds that settlements procured by material misrepresentation or fraud can be rescinded or refused enforcement.
   

• Beals v. Saldanha, 2003 SCC 72, [2003] 3 S.C.R. 416 at para. 40
  
  Establishes that judgments obtained by fraud—including via perjured evidence—will not be enforced. Although Beals concerns foreign judgments, the fraud exception operates equally in domestic contexts.
   

• Sherman Estate v. Donovan, 2021 SCC 25
  
  As noted earlier, the open-court jurisprudence does not permit sealing regimes to shield perjury. Once there is a credible basis to allege sworn falsehoods, the justification for secrecy collapses.
   

Implication: The September 22, 2021 CAGE affidavit is a sworn instrument that proves wrongdoing.

 

September 29, 2021 – Settlement Closure Problems
 

On September 29, 2021, the BC settlement was formally “closed” with a new law firm acting.  The subject received a cheque which proved to be an initially uncashable instrument at the branch level, and the settlement closure events were omitted from the law firm's service record.  The subject obtained a separate "statement of written-off services" three weeks later after repeated follow-ups, which did list the settlement closure events under a different file number.  
 

In practical effect, a purported resolution of a ~$240,000 equity position yielded a nominal, non-liquid sum and a defective payment instrument. When read alongside the prior CEO perjury and confidentiality issues, the “closure” appears as the endpoint of a tainted sequence rather than a genuine, fully performed settlement.
 

Applicable Legal Framework
 

• Liverant v. Jabre, 2018 ONSC 6404
  
  Confirms that settlement agreements induced by material misrepresentation or fraud can be set aside.  Here, the closure follows directly on a perjured affidavit and is implemented via an uncashable cheque—two strong indicators that the factual and financial foundations of consent were defective.
   

• Gold v. Gold, 2020 ONSC 26
  
  Affirms that even consent orders can be revisited where fraud or serious non-disclosure is present.  A court asked to rely on or enforce this “closure” must grapple with the combination of perjured evidence and defective consideration.
   

• Beals v. Saldanha, 2003 SCC 72
  
  The fraud exception to enforcement applies equally to settlement-based orders: if the order rests on perjury and sham performance, it is not entitled to routine deference, whether in BC or in downstream NS enforcement.
   

• Bradshaw v. Stenner, 2010 BCSC 1398, aff’d 2012 BCCA 296
  
  The Bradshaw framework (internal consistency, external consistency, motive, corroboration) highlights:
   

  • internal incoherence in a “settlement” paid with an uncashable cheque;

  • external consistency with a broader pattern of underpayment and valuation collapse;

  • motive to generate the appearance of finality without delivering real value; and

  • corroboration via missing or opaque court-record entries.
     

• 1582235 Ontario Ltd. v. Ontario, 2020 ONSC 1279 at para. 127
  
  Providing a non-negotiable cheque while asserting full settlement is conduct “markedly inconsistent” with the legal context of settlement performance and supports an inference of bad faith.
   

• R. v. E.(O.N.), 2001 SCC 77
  
  Perjury and related fraud obligate the court to revisit the process, not to accept the resulting “closure” at face value.
   

November 7, 2021 – Second Cross-Canada Relocation
 

After returning from BC to Nova Scotia following the mid-October 2021 after settlement closure, the subject again relocated across Canada, departing again for BC on November 7, 2021.  The Nova Scotia home was sold; another year-long lease was entered into in BC; and the subject was between work contracts at the time.  As with the first time, there were no practical or psychological enabling factors.  It just felt right.
 

For someone with a lifelong pattern of geographical stability and risk-averse decision-making (with a documented track record to prove it), the BC → NS → BC sequence, with home sale and repeated fixed-term leases, is an extreme behavioural outlier, and strong circumstantial evidence of major functional disruption that is expected to have originated externally, through a cognitive tampering mechanism, commensurate with the findings in the UN Human Rights Council reports. 
 

Applicable Legal Framework
 

• R. v. Villaroman, 2016 SCC 33, [2016] 1 S.C.R. 1000
  
  Circumstantial inferences must be grounded in proven facts and be reasonably available on the whole of the evidence and best-fit inferences are allowable.  By this point, the record includes the CSR anomalies, counsel failures, perjured settlement evidence, an uncashable cheque, and an earlier relocation.  The subject was fortunate to have emerged from the 2021 dispute with a check in hand.  A second cross-country relocation with no rational driver fits a Villaroman-style inference of abnormal pressure or impairment; it cannot simply be ignored as random.
   

• Sherman Estate v. Donovan, 2021 SCC 25
  
  Sherman Estate’s emphasis on holistic, pattern-based assessment means that later courts considering risk, sealing, or protective orders must see this relocation as part of a broader destabilization pattern, not an isolated lifestyle choice.
   

• Geffen v. Goodman Estate, [1991] 2 S.C.R. 353
  
  Geffen’s presumption of undue influence arises where transactions are not readily explicable by ordinary motives and operate to the person’s manifest disadvantage.  Selling a home, incurring two disruptive cross-country moves, and undertaking a new long lease without employment is precisely the kind of irrational-on-its-face pattern that triggers questions about external pressure.
   

• Bhasin v. Hrynew, 2014 SCC 71, [2014] 3 S.C.R. 494
  
  The duty of honest performance prohibits parties from presenting courts with a sanitized narrative of voluntariness where they know decisions were made under abnormal pressure linked to the very agreements they seek to enforce.
   

• Saadati v. Moorhead, 2017 SCC 28, [2017] 1 S.C.R. 543
  
  Confirms that mental or psychological injury can be established by showing serious functional impairment without a DSM label.  The relocation pattern is strong evidence of such impairment relative to the subject’s baseline.
   

• R. v. Malmo-Levine; R. v. Caine, 2003 SCC 74, [2003] 3 S.C.R. 571
  
  Harm in constitutional analysis includes impairment of major life choices and functioning.  The back-and-forth relocations, against a backdrop of financial and legal distress, show direct impact on housing, stability, and the ability to pursue litigation.
   

November 15, 2021 – “Diffuse & Disrupt” Harassment Begins
 

Around November 15, 2021, the subject began experiencing coordinated harassment: online abuse referencing the BC settlement, physical stalking, repeat break-ins to the Surrey BC condo he had rented, and cyber intrusions.  The harassment targeted multiple life domains—housing, devices, employment prospects, and personal safety.  Despite repeated reports, the RCMP declined to meaningfully investigate.
 

Applicable Legal Framework
 

• R. v. Babos, 2014 SCC 16, [2014] 1 S.C.R. 309
  
  Abuse of process arises where state conduct undermines the integrity of the justice system or public confidence in it.  If courts continue enforcing coercive orders against the subject while the state ignores credible harassment linked to the litigation, Babos-type concerns about systemic unfairness are squarely engaged.
   

• Hill v. Hamilton-Wentworth Regional Police Services Board, 2007 SCC 41, [2007] 3 S.C.R. 129
  
  Recognizes the tort of negligent investigation: once police engage with a complaint, they must investigate with the care of a reasonably competent officer.  Repeated perfunctory responses and failure to gather basic evidence (CCTV, device logs, platform reports) are difficult to reconcile with Hill.
   

• R. v. Loewen, 2011 SCC 21, 281 C.C.C. (3d) 60
  
  Requires assessments based on the totality of circumstances, not siloed incidents.  The harassment must be understood alongside governance anomalies, relocations, and earlier incidents; seen together, they suggest a targeted campaign.
   

• R. v. Ahmad, 2020 SCC 11, [2020] 1 S.C.R. 577
  
  While about entrapment, Ahmad highlights the corrosive effect of digital misconduct on the rule of law.  Here, the concern is the reverse: state under-reach in the face of serious cyber harassment.
   

• Jane Doe v. Metropolitan Toronto (Municipality) Commissioners of Police (1998), 160 D.L.R. (4th) 697 (Ont. Gen. Div.)
  
  Establishes that police owe duties of care toward vulnerable complainants and cannot systematically downplay known threats.  The subject is plainly vulnerable—facing power asymmetries and repeated targeting that referenced a recently-closed shareholder dispute.
   

• Nelles v. Ontario, [1989] 2 S.C.R. 170
  
  Frames malicious prosecution as a check on abusive state power; by analogy, selective non-enforcement in favour of powerful actors raises a mirror-image concern: state powers mobilized against the vulnerable (through courts and costs) but withheld for their protection.

 

December 21, 2021 – Affidavit Implicating Senior Actors
 

On December 21, 2021, the subject swore an affidavit directly implicating senior actors in serious criminal conduct and linking:
 

• the shareholder dispute and settlement irregularities;

• the “diffuse & disrupt” harassment; and

• concrete evidentiary steps available to police (CCTV, cyber-forensics, break-in investigation).
   

The subject kept this on his person.  Despite this detailed sworn record, disruption continued; new counsel declined engagement on a preemptive basis; and the RCMP refused meaningful investigation.
 

Applicable Legal Framework
 

• Hill v. Hamilton-Wentworth Regional Police Services Board, 2007 SCC 41
  
  Once specific investigative steps are laid out—especially in a sworn affidavit—doing effectively nothing falls below the standard of a reasonably competent investigation.
   

• R. v. Loewen, 2011 SCC 21
  
  By December 21, the affidavit synthesized a pattern of events that Loewen requires to be viewed cumulatively, not dismissed piecemeal.
   

• Nelles v. Ontario, [1989] 2 S.C.R. 170
  
  While focused on malicious prosecution, Nelles is instructive on selective enforcement: refusing to investigate because allegations touch institutional or well-connected actors is inconsistent with neutral application of state power.
   

• R. v. Babos, 2014 SCC 16
  
  Continued civil enforcement and escalating costs/contempt while the state ignores a detailed record of plausibly linked criminality risks undermining public confidence in justice.
   

• Criminal Code, R.S.C. 1985, c. C-46, s. 129
  
  Makes it an offence to obstruct or defeat the course of justice.  If any actors discouraged or blocked basic investigative steps after the December affidavit, the boundary between negligence and obstruction is conceptually engaged.
   

• R. v. McNeil, 2009 SCC 3, [2009] 1 S.C.R. 66 at para. 11
  
  Links disclosure obligations to the justice system’s truth-seeking function.  A sworn affidavit detailing investigative avenues is precisely the kind of “relevant information” McNeil presumes will be developed and made available. Institutional refusal to investigate throttles that process.
   

January 20, 2022 – Electronic Attack via Smartphone
 

On January 20, 2022, the subject reported an incident in which a cyber intrusion through a smartphone coincided with a distinct physical sensation to the eyes, analogous to an air-puff non-contact tonometry test, while viewing a youtube post by a recognized harassment actor.  A concurrent cyberattack occurred.  The subject sought RCMP assistance; but no technical investigation or forensic collection occurred.  The CRCC later suggested it was "beyond reality", despite heavy documentation and UN warnings concerning the proliferation of sophisticated tools that can impact the central nervous system (in this case, via the retina).
 

This milestone reflects an escalation from harassment to technologically mediated physical harm, paired with a categorical investigative refusal in a context directly engaging digital privacy and bodily integrity.  This event marks the second physically discernible anomalous health event.
 

Applicable Legal Framework
 

• UN Reports A/HRC/43/49, A/HRC/57/61, & A/HRC/58/58.  UN Resolution A/HRC/RES/58/6. 
  
  Offers a normative framework for cognitive-liberty violations in the ambit of denyable AI-assisted "cybertorture", conducted by organized criminal hubs supported by state-adjacent actors (Sheridan et al., 2020; BAE Systems Detica and London Metropolitan University, 2012).  Neuroethicists such as Professor Nita Farahany (Duke) have for a decade warned of the commercial and ideological drivers behind covert neurotech deployment, and dual use scenarios.  Taken together, these data points render an inference of deliberate cognitive tampering uncomfortably cogent - and, under Sherman Estate, sufficiently grounded to warrant serious investigative attention. 
   

• R. v. Spencer, 2014 SCC 43, [2014] 2 S.C.R. 212 at para. 51
  
  Establishes a robust reasonable expectation of privacy in digital activities and recognizes exigent circumstances as a basis for immediate police action.  A device-mediated physical assault is paradigmatic exigency; Spencer’s logic suggests an obligation to act, not to disengage.
   

• R. v. Fearon, 2014 SCC 77, [2014] 3 S.C.R. 621
  
  Treats smartphones as intensely private devices requiring heightened protection.  If the law demands careful police conduct when they search phones, then when a phone itself is plausibly weaponized, a careful, technologically literate investigation is required.
   

• R. v. Vu, 2013 SCC 60, [2013] 3 S.C.R. 657 at para. 41
  
  Acknowledges that technologies evolve rapidly and that legal responses must adapt.  Dismissing a novel device-mediated attack as psychiatric without any technical inquiry is the opposite of the adaptive posture Vu mandates.
   

• Hunter v. Southam Inc., [1984] 2 S.C.R. 145
  
  Hunter’s concern with unexplained state knowledge is relevant where police display prior knowledge about a complainant but decline to explain its source or to investigate new harms, raising Charter-level questions.
   

• R. v. Grant, 2009 SCC 32, [2009] 2 S.C.R. 353 at para. 71
  Centers autonomy and dignity in s. 8 and s. 9 analysis. Reframing a physical-harm complaint as a mental-health issue without investigation undermines autonomy and dignity in exactly the way Grant cautions against.
   

• R. v. Tessling, 2004 SCC 67, [2004] 3 S.C.R. 432 at para. 64
  
  Stresses that privacy and legality analysis must track what technology can do.  Whether such an attack is feasible is a technical question; Tessling implies that feasibility must be examined before harm is dismissed as impossible.
   

Integrated Conclusion for This Milestone
 

Taken together, R. v. Spencer, R. v. Fearon, R. v. Vu, Hunter v. Southam Inc., R. v. Grant, and R. v. Tessling point in one direction: emerging, device-mediated harms trigger heightened investigative and constitutional obligations, not psychiatric deflection.  The January 20, 2022 incident fits the broader pattern: technological escalation, institutional disengagement, and a justice system that increasingly inverts its protective logic against the complainant.  UN reports like A/HRC/57/61 and A/HRC/43/49 move anomalous cyber events into real-world actionable concerns.

November 3, 2022 – Civil Contempt Finding (Redacted Public-Interest Disclosure)
 

On November 3, 2022, the British Columbia Supreme Court found the subject in civil contempt in relation to heavily redacted disclosures sent to agencies, media, and police about events in late 2021–2022, when it became apparent that the subject was contending with an institutional framework that appeared to be captured, alongside the sophisticated AI-assisted harassment earlier noted.  These disclosures alleged corporate fraud, harassment, and institutional failures, and were redacted in keeping with the 2021 court order concerning similar materials while the shareholder agreement was still active.  None of the contents submitted to media had satisfied any exceptions to open court in their own right.
 

The contempt finding proceeded on the premise that the subject had “breached” blanket sealing orders by communicating in a public-interest, safety-driven context, rather than first seeking clarification or tailoring of those orders to reconcile secrecy with whistleblowing and reporting duties.  Later, in Nova Scotia, a representative of the NS court stated that it was appropriate for the court to discuss a fully sealed file (the asymmetric “Schedule A” later described in this article) because doing so was “necessary for the public to understand the workings of the court.”  In other words, the subject was refused relief and punished for speaking out, while a Canadian superior court subsequently claimed its own latitude to speak publicly about the sealed matter.
 

Applicable Legal Framework
 

United Nurses of Alberta v. Alberta (Attorney General), [1992] 1 S.C.R. 901

In United Nurses of Alberta, the Court described contempt as an exceptional remedy aimed at preserving the authority of courts, not a mechanism for punishing mistakes or good-faith misunderstandings.  It requires:
 

1. a clear and unequivocal order;

2. knowledge of that order;

3. deliberate disobedience that poses a real risk to the administration of justice.
    

Where the alleged contempt involves heavily-redacted disclosures to police, regulators, or media on matters of public protection, United Nurses required the court to interrogate whether any breach was wilful defiance or a good-faith attempt to reconcile overlapping obligations (obey orders vs. report crime and danger).  Treating such disclosures as straightforward contempt without that analysis diverges from United Nurses’ narrow conception of the remedy.

 

Carey v. Laiken, 2015 SCC 17, [2015] 2 S.C.R. 79

In Carey v. Laiken, the Court reaffirmed the three elements of civil contempt and stressed that contempt is “an enforcement power of last rather than first resort.”  Courts are urged to consider alternatives: clarification of orders, tailored variations, or lesser remedial responses.
 

Here, the court could have:
 

• clarified the scope of the protection order;

• created explicit carve-outs for reporting to law enforcement, regulators, or narrow media channels;

• modified the order to allow redacted public-interest disclosures.
   

Moving directly to contempt against a party attempting to sound the alarm about systemic wrongdoing—using redactions to respect confidentiality—sits uneasily with Carey’s last-resort approach.

 

Sierra Club of Canada v. Canada (Minister of Finance), 2002 SCC 41, [2002] 2 S.C.R. 522 

Sierra Club requires that confidentiality orders:
 

• protect an important interest;

• be necessary to prevent a serious risk;

• impair openness as little as reasonably possible.
   

If the alleged contempt flows from Justice Tucker’s June 27 protection order, Sierra Club required the court to ask:
 

• was the order itself minimally impairing?

• were carve-outs for police/regulatory reporting a reasonable alternative?

• was punishing redacted disclosures justified by any concrete risk, beyond technical violation?
   

Treating the protection order as a total gag, and then weaponizing contempt to enforce it against public-interest reporting, departs from Sierra Club’s minimal-impairment and alternatives framework.

 

Grant v. Torstar Corp., 2009 SCC 61, [2009] 3 S.C.R. 640

In Grant v. Torstar Corp., the Court recognized the defence of responsible communication on matters of public interest in defamation law.  The central idea is that public-interest disclosure—if made responsibly—ought to be protected, not punished.
 

Although Grant arises in a different doctrinal context, its logic is directly relevant: disclosures about alleged corporate fraud, harassment, and police inaction, made in a heavily redacted, careful way, align with the kind of responsible public-interest communication that Grant treats as legally valued.  To respond with contempt, without any visible inquiry into the subject’s responsibility or the public-interest dimension, undermines that jurisprudential balance.

 

Dagg v. Canada (Minister of Finance), [1997] 2 S.C.R. 403 

In Dagg, the Court emphasized that the purpose of access-to-information regimes is to facilitate democracy by enabling accountability and participation.  Secrecy is treated as an exception requiring justification.
 

A contempt sanction for disclosing information to oversight bodies and media—especially where the disclosures are redacted and oriented toward safety and accountability—effectively flips that presumption. Without concrete evidence of harm beyond “disobedience of order,” the response conflicts with Dagg’s core democratic transparency principle.

 

R. v. Wholesale Travel Group Inc., [1991] 3 S.C.R. 154

Wholesale Travel dealt with strict-liability offences and insisted that liability is constitutionally suspect where a person, despite exercising all reasonable care, has no realistic path to avoid conviction.  By analogy, where a litigant faces:
 

• confidentiality orders;

• legal and ethical duties to report crime or risk;

• a strong public-interest imperative to warn regulators/media;
   

imposing contempt without creating a workable path to reconcile these obligations resembles the “no real opportunity to comply” scenario Wholesale Travel warns against.  Punishing the subject for attempting, in good faith, to thread

R. v. Bellusci, 2012 SCC 44, [2012] 2 S.C.R. 509

Per the court at paragraph 25; Having found that Mr. Bellusci had been provoked and subjected by a state actor to intolerable physical and psychological abuse, it was open to the trial judge to decline to enter a conviction against him.  As the Court explained in Tobiass, “if a past abuse were serious enough, then public confidence in the administration of justice could be so undermined that the mere act of carrying forward in the light of it would constitute a new and ongoing abuse sufficient to warrant a stay of proceedings”
 

Integrated conclusion for this milestone

United Nurses, Carey, Sierra Club, Grant, Dagg, Bellusci, and Wholesale Travel collectively depict contempt as rare, confidentiality as narrow, and public-interest disclosure as something to accommodate, not crush.  The November 3, 2022 contempt finding—aimed at heavily-redacted whistleblowing to agencies, media, and police—points toward a system that used secrecy orders and contempt powers to silence disclosure about possible institutional failures rather than to preserve the administration of justice.

 

November 7, 2022 – Full Sealing of Charter File S-228567
 

On November 7, 2022, a new Charter file S-228567 was fully sealed pre-merits, along with the appeal.  The supporting affidavit was limited to public social-media posts documenting the alleged AI-assisted harassment tied to the litigation.  The result was that a Charter claim—centrally about freedom of expression, security of the person, and surveillance—was transformed into a closed proceeding before any constitutional issues were adjudicated.
 

Applicable Legal Framework
 

Sherman Estate v. Donovan, 2021 SCC 25, [2021] 2 S.C.R. 321

In Sherman Estate, the Court held that:
 

1. there is a strong presumption of openness;

2. limits on openness are justified only where openness poses a serious risk to an important public interest (e.g., physical safety, serious dignity threats);

3. even then, orders must be narrowly tailored and minimally impairing.
    

Public social-media posts are, by definition, already exposed.  Filing them in a Charter record does not newly endanger privacy in a way that meets Sherman’s “serious risk” threshold. A full pre-merits seal of S-226567, including procedural history and legal arguments, with no attempt at redactions, is difficult to reconcile with Sherman’s insistence on narrow, tailored restrictions.

 

Canadian Broadcasting Corp. v. Named Person, 2024 SCC 21 

In CBC v. Named Person, involving police-informer privilege (one of the most secrecy-laden corners of Canadian law), the Court held that even highly sensitive cases must retain a public-facing structure: a visible file, public reasons (albeit heavily redacted), and a basic docket trace.

If informer-privilege proceedings cannot be made fully invisible, a fortiori a Charter proceeding anchored in public-domain social-media posts should not be sealed in toto.  The full, pre-merits sealing of S-226567 pushed constitutional litigation further into the shadows than the Supreme Court accepts even for informer cases.

 

Dagenais v. Canadian Broadcasting Corp., [1994] 3 S.C.R. 835 & R. v. Mentuck, 2001 SCC 76, [2001] 3 S.C.R. 442

Dagenais and Mentuck govern publication bans and related secrecy measures.  They require:
 

1. necessity to prevent a serious risk to the proper administration of justice or another important public interest;

2. no reasonably available alternative measures;

3. proportionality—benefits outweigh harms to openness and expression.
    

Applied to S-226567:
 

• Necessity – No serious risk to administration of justice is created by the mere filing of public-domain posts documenting harassment.

• Alternatives – If certain identifiers were sensitive, redaction or partial sealing would be obvious alternatives.

• Proportionality – The public interest in open adjudication of novel AI-harassment Charter issues is extremely high.
   

On this analysis, a blanket pre-merits seal fails the Dagenais/Mentuck test on all three prongs.

 

R. v. McNeil, 2009 SCC 3, [2009] 1 S.C.R. 66 & R. v. O’Connor, [1995] 4 S.C.R. 411 – Evidence for constitutional fairness must be examinable, not buried

McNeil and O’Connor concern disclosure and production of records in criminal/Charter contexts.  Their core principle is that information relevant to Charter rights and trial fairness must be accessible to courts, typically through controlled production and in-camera review where privacy is engaged.
 

If S-226567’s affidavit material, FOIPOP-revealed police records, and other evidence shed light on:
 

• state response to harassment and surveillance;

• psychological operations or AI-assisted targeting;

• systemic investigative failures;
   

then McNeil/O’Connor logic favours their development and judicial examination, not their entombment behind a full seal.  A sealed Charter file cannot perform the truth-seeking function these decisions presuppose.

 

Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, ss. 2(b), 7, 8 
 

• Section 2(b) (freedom of expression) – The open-court principle has a s. 2(b) dimension: court processes are a mode of expression, and public access enables public debate.  Sealing a Charter file about expressive activity and AI-assisted harassment is itself a restriction on expression and on the public’s ability to understand and critique state response.

• Section 7 (life, liberty, security of the person) – Where the Charter claim alleges serious psychological operations and harassment affecting security of the person, suppressing the proceeding undermines the Charter’s protective function.

• Section 8 (unreasonable search and seizure) – Claims about surveillance and technological intrusion require visible adjudication if jurisprudence on emerging harms is to develop.
   

A fully sealed Charter file in these circumstances is not merely a procedural oddity; it is a form of prior restraint on constitutional litigation, contrary to the animating values of ss. 2(b), 7, and 8.

 

Integrated conclusion for this milestone

Sherman Estate, CBC v. Named Person, Dagenais/Mentuck, McNeil/O’Connor, and the Charter itself all point away from blanket secrecy and toward controlled openness, especially in Charter cases about new forms of harm.  The full, pre-merits sealing of S-226567, based on public-domain evidence, is best understood as a form of unconstitutional censorship of a Charter challenge, removing it from public law precisely when its subject matter—AI-assisted harassment and surveillance—demanded transparent judicial engagement.

 

December 8, 2022 – Police Meeting: Evidence Praised, Then Denied on Paper
 

On December 8, 2022, a 79-minute police meeting took place in which a Halifax Regional Police Constable repeatedly praised and validated the subject’s evidence, acknowledging its coherence and the need for follow-up.  The respondent was named as a criminal actor and an investigative roadmap was articulated.  The meeting was discreetly audio-recorded by the subject in its entirety.  However, in materials obtained via FOIPOP, official police documentation either denied that such evidence existed or dismissed it by pathologizing the subject rather than engaging the substance.  The live audio and the written records are in direct conflict.  The episode accounted for a clear violation of CCC 137.
 

Applicable Legal Framework
 

Hill v. Hamilton-Wentworth Regional Police Services Board, 2007 SCC 41, [2007] 3 S.C.R. 129 

In Hill, the Court recognized the tort of negligent investigation and held that police owe complainants a duty to conduct investigations with the care of a reasonable officer, free from reckless indifference or discriminatory assumptions.
 

The December 8 sequence—praising evidence in person, then reducing or erasing it in official records via “MH pejoratives”—falls outside the bounds of good-faith, competence-based investigation.  It suggests that institutional narrative management, rather than open-minded fact-gathering, guided the documentation process.

 

R. v. McNeil, 2009 SCC 3 

McNeil ties disclosure duties to the justice system’s truth-seeking function.  Police-held information relevant to proceedings (including misconduct or credibility issues) must be preserved accurately and made available so that courts can adjudicate fairly.
 

Where an audio recording shows officers validating evidence, but FOIPOP-disclosed notes deny or pathologize that same evidence, McNeil is directly engaged.  The divergence points to a failure both to maintain an accurate institutional record and to disclose relevant information about the state’s treatment of the complaint.

 

R. v. O’Connor, [1995] 4 S.C.R. 411 

O’Connor requires that where third-party records (often including police records) may affect fairness or credibility, courts must review them in camera and balance privacy against the accused’s ability to make full answer and defence.

The December 8 clash between audio and written records is exactly the type of discrepancy O’Connor anticipates: where police documentation and underlying reality diverge, the court’s role is to examine both, not to accept the paper record at face value.

​

Criminal Code, R.S.C. 1985, c. C-46, s. 137 

Section 137 criminalizes the fabrication or falsification of evidence with intent to mislead. While criminal liability is a separate question, the juxtaposition of:
 

• recorded statements praising the subject’s evidence and promising follow-up; and

• later written records denying that evidence or recasting it as “mental health” complaints;
   

is a textbook fact pattern raising s. 137 concerns.  At minimum, any judicial or oversight body confronted with these materials is required to scrutinize whether the written record was altered or crafted to mislead.

 

R. v. Loewen, 2011 SCC 21, [2011] 2 S.C.R. 167 

Loewen holds that reasonableness and legality must be assessed on the totality of circumstances, not by siloing incidents.  The December 8 event must be read alongside:
 

• earlier police refusals to investigate technological harassment;

• the February 10, 2022 meeting where an officer displayed unexplained prior knowledge;

• ongoing online and physical harassment linked to litigation milestones.
   

Taken together, these events describe a pattern of disengagement and narrative control that courts are not permitted to ignore under Loewen’s totality standard.

 

R. v. Babos, 2014 SCC 16

Finally, Babos’ abuse-of-process framework applies to systemic state conduct that undermines public confidence in the administration of justice.

A pattern in which:
 

• police privately endorse evidence;

• publicly or on paper deny its existence or recast the complainant as mentally ill;

• and then continue to abstain from meaningful investigation,
   

fits the category of misconduct that risks crossing the Babos line.  It not only prejudices the subject’s case but also sends a signal to other complainants that truthful reporting may be met with pathologization and record distortion rather than impartial investigation.

 

Integrated conclusion for this milestone

Through the lens of Hill, McNeil, O’Connor, s. 137, Loewen, and Babos, the December 8, 2022 meeting is more than an unfortunate inconsistency.  It is a critical evidentiary pivot where the institutional record diverges sharply from recorded reality, revealing a pattern of narrative control, potential evidence fabrication, and systemic avoidance of investigative responsibility at precisely the moment when neutral police engagement was most needed

 

December 13, 2022 – S-229680 Sealed Before Acceptance of Service and Prior to Any Hearing
 

On December 13, 2022, the Charter / civil file S-229680 (a duplicate of S-229567 filed under the correct style of cause) was sealed before service was accepted by the respondents, before the court had jurisdiction over the parties, and before any hearing was held.  The subject made this discovery while logged into the BC Court Services Online ("CSO") online portal.  Within seconds (approximately 15 seconds) of the subject discovering the seal on BC CSO, opposing counsel emailed and accepted service—aligning powerfully with the surveillance mechanisms that had been identified in early 2022, and which form the backbone of the scandal. 
 

Sealing a file pre-service, pre-response, pre-hearing, and without a sealing application on notice is irreconcilable with the open-court principle and the procedural safeguards the Supreme Court of Canada has made mandatory.
 

Applicable Legal Framework
 

1. Vancouver Sun (Re), 2004 SCC 43 
 

In Vancouver Sun (Re), the Court held that the open-court principle is the starting point for all judicial proceedings.  Any limit on access (sealing, publication bans, in camera hearings) must:

​

• Be ordered by a judge,

• Be supported by evidence, and

• Be justified through the Dagenais/Mentuck framework (necessity, lack of alternatives, proportionality).
   

Administrative or “back-office” secrecy, imposed without a hearing and without reasons, is incompatible with that framework.  A court file that is automatically sealed the moment it is opened—before service and before any party can be heard—does not satisfy Vancouver Sun (Re)’s requirement of a judicial, reasoned, minimally impairing limitation on openness.
 

Applied: S-229680 was sealed without notice, without evidence being tested, and without a visible application of the open-court test.  That is the antithesis of what Vancouver Sun (Re) requires.

 

2. Sherman Estate v. Donovan, 2021 SCC 25 
 

Sherman Estate sets out the modern test for sealing orders:
 

1. Serious risk to an important public interest (e.g., public-aspect privacy, safety, administration of justice) if openness is maintained;

2. No reasonable alternative to a sealing order; and

3. Benefits outweigh harms to the open-court principle.
    

Crucially:
 

• The burden lies on the party seeking confidentiality,

• The analysis must be evidentiary and specific, and

• Sealing must be narrow and proportionate, not global.
   

Pre-emptively sealing an entire file before any defendant has been served and before submissions on risk, alternatives, or proportionality are heard is exactly the kind of “pre-merits opacity” Sherman Estate warns against: a protective order that precedes rather than follows judicial reasoning.
 

Applied: On December 13, 2022, S-229680 was sealed in the absence of any on-notice application, evidence, or structured reasoning under Sherman Estate.  That timing and manner are irreconcilable with the case’s requirements.

 

3. Dagenais v. CBC & R. v. Mentuck 
 

Dagenais and Mentuck govern all significant departures from openness (publication bans, sealing, anonymity):
 

• Necessity: There must be a serious risk to the administration of justice or other compelling interest;

• No reasonable alternative: Narrower tools (e.g., redaction, anonymization, delayed disclosure) must be insufficient;

• Proportionality: The salutary effects must outweigh the deleterious impact on openness and expression.
   

Automatic, administrative, or pre-emptive sealing without a hearing means none of these steps occurred.  There was:
 

• No articulated “serious risk,”

• No discussion of narrower alternatives,

• No reasoned proportionality assessment.
   

Applied: A pre-service, pre-hearing seal on S-229680 is, by definition, a non-Dagenais/Mentuck seal.  It lacks the mandatory elements that make a limit on openness lawful.

 

4. CBC v. Named Person, 2024 SCC 21
 

In CBC v. Named Person, the Supreme Court dealt with police-informer privilege, one of the most secrecy-sensitive contexts in Canadian law. The Court nevertheless insisted that:
 

• There must be a public docket,

• There must be public reasons, albeit heavily redacted, and

• Total disappearance of a proceeding from public view is not acceptable.
   

If informer-privilege matters cannot be conducted as “secret trials” with no public footprint, it is difficult to see how a Charter / civil file like S-229680 could be sealed entirely and silently at the registry level before service and hearing.
 

Applied: S-229680 had no public, reasoned sealing order at the time of sealing.  That pattern is even more opaque than the informer-privilege proceedings Named Person was concerned with. It falls outside the constitutionally acceptable spectrum of secrecy.

 

5. Ruby v. Canada (Solicitor General), 2002 SCC 75 
 

Ruby holds that where rights and interests are affected, procedural fairness generally requires:
 

• Notice of the issue being decided,

• An opportunity to be heard, and

• Sufficient reasons to understand the decision.
   

Sealing a proceeding before the subject is even permitted to complete service denies:
 

• Notice of any sealing application,
  An opportunity to argue openness, tailoring, or alternatives,

• Access to the evidentiary and reasoning basis for the seal.
   

Applied: The subject was deprived of basic Ruby-style participation rights in relation to the sealing of S-229680.  That is a procedural fairness breach, irrespective of whether the ultimate outcome might have been the same.

 

6. Cardinal v. Director of Kent Institution, [1985] 2 SCR 643
 

Cardinal stands for a categorical rule: a denial of natural justice or procedural fairness renders a decision invalid, regardless of outcome.  Courts do not “save” decisions where a right to be heard was absent; the remedy is to set aside and reconsider.
 

Applied: A sealing decision made:
 

• Without service,

• Without notice,

• Without hearing, and

• Without an opportunity for submissions on openness,
   

falls squarely within Cardinal’s invalidity rule.  The problem is not just that the seal is undesirable; it is that the process by which it was imposed is legally defective in itself.

 

7. Maple Ridge (District) v. Thornhill Aggregates Ltd., 2002 BCCA 336 
 

The BCCA has affirmed that courts cannot make binding orders affecting parties who have not yet been properly brought before the court via service or equivalent jurisdictional steps.  Orders directed at a party presuppose that the court is seized of that party.
 

While a sealing order is directed at the record rather than a particular defendant, in practice it affects the procedural rights of all parties and the public.  Imposing such an order before service is accepted and before the court is seized of the defendants at all stretches jurisdiction to its breaking point.
 

Applied: Sealing S-229680 pre-service conflicts with the jurisdictional logic in Thornhill Aggregates: the court acted as if it were fully seized and in a position to determine limits on access, when it was not.

 

8. A.G. (Nova Scotia) v. MacIntyre, [1982] 1 SCR 175
 

MacIntyre established the baseline rule that the public is entitled to inspect court documents (e.g., search warrants) unless and until a valid judicial order, properly justified, says otherwise.
 

Applied: In the absence of a reasoned, on-notice sealing order under Sherman Estate / Dagenais/Mentuck, S-229680 should have remained presumptively public.  An administrative notation “sealed” without process does not meet MacIntyre’s threshold.

 

9. Toronto Star v. Ontario, 2018 ONCA 258 
 

The Ontario Court of Appeal, in Toronto Star, struck down a statutory scheme that effectively imposed automatic presumptive secrecy on certain proceedings.  The Court held that default secrecy is incompatible with the open-court principle and s. 2(b) of the Charter; limits on openness must be justified in individual cases.
 

Applied: A registry-level practice of sealing a file like S-229680 before any judicial hearing or reasons mirrors the “automatic secrecy” condemned in Toronto Star.

 

10. Charter s. 2(b) – Open Courts as a Mode of Expression
 

Section 2(b) protects freedom of expression, which includes:
 

• The public right to receive information about court proceedings, and

• The subject’s ability to speak about and rely on court processes as part of public discourse.
   

A pre-hearing, pre-service seal functions as a form of prior restraint on both public access and the subject’s ability to build a public record through litigation.  Under s. 2(b) doctrine, such prior restraint is only justified under stringent conditions, which were not observed here.

11. R. v. Wise, [1992] 1 S.C.R. 527

In Wise, the Supreme Court of Canada held that the use of an electronic tracking device by the state is a search under s. 8 of the Charter, and that this principle extends beyond any specific technology in use at the time.  Building on Duarte and Wong, the Court held that:
 

• Charter protection is not limited to a single surveillance tool; it “embraces all existing means” by which the state can electronically intrude on privacy, and any means which technology places at the state’s disposal in the future.

• An individual has a reasonable expectation of privacy in their movements, not just in their communications.

• There is a critical distinction between casual public observation and systematic, technologically enhanced monitoring.

• A fear of systematic observation, even in public places, destroys the sense of freedom essential in a democratic society.

• It is “absolutely outrageous” in a free society for police or state agents, on mere suspicion and at their sole discretion, to be able to track a person’s movements continuously over extended periods.
   

Applied: The sequence on December 13, 2022—where S-229680 was discovered as sealed on CSO and, within approximately 15 seconds, opposing counsel emailed to accept service—aligns with the hallmarks of real-time, technology-enhanced surveillance of the subject’s movements within the court system.  If state actors, court-adjacent actors, or their agents were monitoring the subject’s online interactions with BC CSO and using that surveillance to trigger immediate procedural steps (such as pre-emptive sealing and tactical email responses), Wise squarely characterizes that as Charter-engaging surveillance, not innocuous observation.
 

In combination with the pre-service, pre-hearing seal on S-229680, this pattern suggests a scenario in which technology-enabled monitoring and pre-emptive opacity operated together: the subject’s attempts to engage the court were both watched and silently constrained.  Under Wise, such systematic monitoring of a litigant’s movements through digital court infrastructure, when used to shape or foreclose their access to open proceedings, engages s. 8 (privacy in movements) and connects directly to s. 7 and s. 2(b) concerns already identified in this section.

Summary
 

Across Vancouver Sun (Re), Sherman Estate, Dagenais/Mentuck, CBC v. Named Person, Ruby, Cardinal, MacIntyre, and Toronto Star, a consistent rule emerges:
 

• No pre-service sealing;

• No administrative, non-judicial sealing;

• No sealing without application, evidence, and reasons;

• No sealing without jurisdiction.
   

The December 13, 2022 sealing of S-229680:
 

• Was made before service and before the court was properly seized,

• Occurred without notice or hearing,

• Has no visible Sherman / Dagenais analysis, and

• Lacks reasons.

• Aligns with the 4ir / neurotech / state-adjacent interference leg
   

Within this jurisprudential framework, the sealing is not a mere irregularity; it is legally defective on its face—a jurisdictional and constitutional error rather than a permissible exercise of discretion.

 

January 26 – February 1, 2023 – Case-Management Judge Request Acknowledged, Then Ignored After Email from AG Counsel
 

Between January 26 and February 1, 2023, the registry initially acknowledged the subject’s formal request for a Case Management Judge (CMJ) and a case-management conference under BCSC Practice Direction 5 (PD-5) and the Class Proceedings Act (CPA), recognizing:
 

• That S-229680 was styled under the CPA;

• That PD-5 applied; and

• That the proceeding required coordinated judicial management.
   

Within days, following an email from counsel for the Attorney General (a respondent in S-229680), the registry abruptly backed away from PD-5 and the CPA framework, ignored the class-proceeding style-of-cause, and reassigned the matter to Justice Majawa—the judge who had previously dismissed S-220956.
 

Applicable Legal Framework
 

1. Practice Direction 5 (PD-5) 
 

PD-5 provides that in class proceedings and complex or Charter-intensive litigation, the Court will assign a Case Management Judge who:
 

• Oversees all steps,

• Conducts early case-management conferences

• Ensures procedural consistency, and

• Limits forum shopping and fragmented adjudication.
   

While labelled a “practice direction,” PD-5 operates as a binding procedural framework on court administration: assignment is a judicial function that cannot be quietly overridden at the request of a party.  It is a requirement for claims brought under the CPA, like S-229680.
 

Applied: Scheduling initially acknowledged the CMJ request under PD-5.  Abandoning that course immediately after AG counsel’s intervention contradicts the direction’s structure and purpose.

 

2. Class Proceedings Act, R.S.B.C. 1996, c. 50 – Single-Judge and Certification Architecture
 

The CPA sets out a structural regime:
 

• Certification and pre-trial management are to occur under a single judge;

• The court must address common issues and procedural matters together;

• Certification, supporting affidavits, and case management occur before merits determination.
   

Where a proceeding is pleaded under the CPA (as S-229680 was), this architecture is not optional.
 

Applied: Discarding the CPA style-of-cause and routing the file back to ordinary chambers, at the request of one litigant, effectively sidestepped a statutory framework designed to protect class-wide and systemic Charter issues.  That is more than a mere scheduling decision; it is a structural departure from the CPA itself.

 

3. Rules 22-3 and 1-3 – Style of Cause and the Overriding Objective
 

• Rule 22-3 requires that documents use the correct style of proceeding, and where a proceeding is brought under the CPA, that fact must appear in the style of cause.

• Rule 1-3 sets the overriding objective: the “just, speedy, and inexpensive determination of every proceeding on its merits.”
   

Applied:
 

• Scheduling’s initial acknowledgment of the CPA style-of-cause reflected Rule 22-3 compliance.

• Its later abandonment, prompted by AG counsel’s email, amounts to an administrative override of Rule 22-3 and undermines Rule 1-3’s objective by fragmenting what should have been a unified, case-managed proceeding.
   

4. Imperial Oil Ltd. v. Jacques, 2014 SCC 66 – Role of Case-Management Judges
 

In Jacques, the Supreme Court underscored that case-management judges:
 

• Must be sufficiently familiar with the record,

• Should coordinate complex steps (especially in class or multi-party settings), and

• Are central to ensuring fair, efficient, and proportionate proceedings.
   

The point is continuity and expertise: assigning a CMJ is meant to enhance fairness, not to create tactical opportunities.
 

Applied: Denying CMJ assignment and re-routing S-229680 to a judge who had already decided S-220956 deprived the file of Jacques-style continuity and neutrality, while reinforcing the appearance that forum selection was influenced by one party’s preferences.

 

5. Coast Foundation Society v. Currie, 2005 BCSC 1187 
 

Currie recognizes that related proceedings involving overlapping facts and parties should be case-managed together to avoid inconsistent outcomes and duplicative effort.
 

Applied: S-229680 and S-220956 share core factual ground: corporate records, harassment, police conduct, sealed files, institutional responses. PD-5 / CPA case management was the natural mechanism to apply Currie.  Abandoning that mechanism at the behest of an institutional litigant goes in the opposite direction.

 

6. Pintea v. Johns, 2017 SCC 23 – Duties Toward Self-Represented Litigants
 

Pintea confirms that courts and court officials must adapt procedures so that self-represented litigants are not unfairly disadvantaged.  S-229680 is precisely the kind of matter where formal case management is essential to prevent the procedural foreclosure noted in S-220956.
 

Applied: Removing PD-5 case-management protections after acknowledging them deprived the subject—self-represented, displaced, and facing sealed files—of the very structural safeguard Pintea suggests courts should employ.

 

7. R. v. Bain & R. v. S. (R.D.) – Appearance of Justice and Forum Steering
 

• Bain condemns processes in which one party appears to influence the composition of the decision-making body.

• S. (R.D.) adopts the test for reasonable apprehension of bias: whether an informed person, viewing the matter realistically, would conclude that the decision-maker might not be impartial.
   

Applied: The sequence—
 

1. PD-5 / CMJ acknowledgment,

2. AG counsel email,

3. Reassignment away from CMJ toward a judge previously associated with adverse rulings—
    

creates classic Bain / S. (R.D.) optics: an institutional litigant appears to have influenced who will hear the case.

 

8. Canadian Judicial Council – Ethical Principles for Judges (2021)
 

The CJC’s Ethical Principles emphasize that:
 

• Judicial assignments must be made independently;

• Appearance of impartiality is as important as impartiality itself;

• The court must avoid any impression that litigants can steer or select judges.
   

Applied: A registry reversal that follows, almost immediately, an email from AG counsel asking that the matter go to a particular judge undermines those ethical expectations, even if no actual bias existed.

9. BC Supreme Court Civil Rules and Class Proceedings Act 
 

The British Columbia Supreme Court Civil Rules and the Class Proceedings Act (“CPA”) impose a tightly structured framework for how class proceedings must be styled, managed, and advanced.  That framework includes:
 

(a) Style of Proceeding and Heading Requirements
 

• Rule 22-3(5) requires that every document prepared for use in the proceeding be headed with the style of proceeding set out on the most recent originating pleading filed in that proceeding.

• Rule 22-3(6)(a) provides that, where it is intended at the start of the proceeding to seek certification under the Class Proceedings Act, the style of proceeding must include the words:

   

  “Brought under the Class Proceedings Act”
  immediately below the listed parties.  In S-229680, that intention is articulated in paragraphs 7 and 53 of the Notice of Civil Claim, which expressly frame the matter as a proposed class proceeding.
   

(b) Practice Direction 5 – Case Management Judge Requirement
 

• BCSC Practice Direction 5 governs matters brought under the CPA. It provides that:

  • The Court will assign a Case Management Judge to preside in the proceeding;

  • The Court will advise the parties when that judge is assigned; and

  • A Case Management Conference will be scheduled.
     

• In other words, once a matter is instituted as a class proceeding on its face, there must be a structured case-management architecture with a designated judge overseeing the file.
   

(c) Single-Judge Continuity for Pre-Trial Applications
 

• Section 14(1) of the Class Proceedings Act, R.S.B.C. 1996, c. 50 requires that the same judge who makes the certification order must adjudicate all applications filed in the matter prior to the trial of the common issues.
   

• This rule is designed to ensure continuity, coherence, and consistency in all interlocutory rulings that affect the certified (or proposed) class.
   

(d) Common Issues to Be Determined Together
 

• Sections 11(1)(a), 18(1), and 20(1) of the CPA maintain that the common issues are to be determined together by the Court.

• This reinforces that the proceeding is not a series of disconnected individual disputes, but a unified structure where common questions are centrally resolved for the class.
   

(e) Affidavit-Based Record and Disclosure of Material Facts (CPA s. 5)
 

• In light of s. 5(5) of the CPA, and its effect of supplanting ordinary BCSC Rule 7(1) in the class context, materials supporting the cause of action are to be disclosed in supporting affidavits on a certification application.
   

• A person filing an affidavit under s. 5(2) or (4) must:

  1. Set out the material facts on which they intend to rely at the certification hearing;

  2. Swear that they know of no material fact relevant to the application that has not been disclosed in their affidavit or in any affidavits previously filed in the proceeding; and

  3. Provide their best information on the number of members in the proposed class.
      

• This creates a heightened duty of candour and completeness at the certification stage: the evidentiary record must be fulsome, forthright, and anchored in sworn evidence.
   

• Section 5(6) provides that the Court may adjourn the application for certification to allow:

  • Amendments to materials or pleadings; and/or

  • The filing of further evidence.
    This reflects a remedial, flexible approach intended to ensure that certification is decided on a complete and properly framed record, rather than through technical ambush.
     

• Section 5(7) confirms that an order certifying a proceeding as a class proceeding is not a determination on the merits.
  Certification is a procedural gateway decision, not a finding of liability. Substantive merits remain to be adjudicated in the trial of common and individual issues.
   

(f) Power to Strike Abusive or Prejudicial Materials
 

• Rule 9-5(3)(b) of the Supreme Court Civil Rules authorizes the Court to strike any document on the ground that it:

  • May prejudice, embarrass, or delay the fair trial or hearing of the proceeding, or

  • Constitutes an abuse of the process of the court.
     

• In the class context, this power interacts with the CPA regime: it may be used to police pleadings or affidavits that undermine the fair, efficient adjudication of common issues or that misrepresent the nature of a proposed class proceeding.
   

Applied – Structural Obligations in This Proceeding

Taken together, these provisions establish that once a proceeding is launched as a proposed class proceeding (as signalled in the Notice of Civil Claim and required by the style “Brought under the Class Proceedings Act”):
 

• The style of cause and document headings must consistently reflect the CPA framework (Rule 22-3(5), 22-3(6)(a));

• A Case Management Judge must be assigned under Practice Direction 5, with structured case management;

• All pre-trial applications are to be heard by the same judge who ultimately determines certification (CPA s. 14(1));

• Common issues must be treated as common, and determined together (CPA ss. 11, 18, 20);

• The certification record must be built through full and candid supporting affidavits disclosing all material facts and best information on class size (CPA s. 5(5)); and

• The Court retains a screening power under Rule 9-5(3)(b) to strike documents that prejudice, embarrass, delay, or abuse the process, including where the CPA structure is being evaded or distorted.
   

To the extent any of these structural safeguards were ignored, bypassed, or handled by judges other than a properly assigned case-management / certification judge, the proceeding departs from the mandatory framework imposed by the Supreme Court Civil Rules, the CPA, and Practice Direction 5.

 

Likewise, when PD-5, the CPA, Rules 22-3 and 1-3, Jacques, Currie, Pintea, Bain, S. (R.D.), and CJC ethics are read together, they point to a unified principle: Case management and judicial assignment must follow established statutory and procedural structures, not litigant preference.
 

This milestone marks the point where court administration ceased to act in a visibly neutral, framework-driven way and began to respond to the preferences of an institutional respondent.  The result is a serious appearance-of-justice problem and a structural fairness deficit baked into everything that followed in S-229680.

January 26, 2023 – Weaponized Solicitor-Client Billing Commences
 

On January 26, 2023, the first major indicators of the billing scandal emerged.  Costs arising from the November 2022 contempt finding—an appearance lasting approximately twenty minutes supported by the Respondents' 11-page PDF submission—were settled in the British Columbia Court of Appeal on the basis of solicitor-client special costs totaling no less than 89 hours of billed time.  Three lawyers claimed overlapping work in large, block-billed segments that bore no rational relationship to the task performed.
 

For context, equivalent motions in Nova Scotia had proceeded on comparable subject matter, filings, and time, for approximately $500 per motion.  The one hearing totaled $41,500—$5,000 being the contempt fine, and the remaining $36,500 was predicated on the respondents' billing claim, yielding a 7,300% increase above the presumptive tariff.  The BCCA Registrar was quick to respond to an error notification by the Respondents regarding personal pronouns in the decision, but had ignored my subsequent letter regarding the arithmetic and case law.
 

The magnitude, structure, and timing of the accounts strongly suggest that the special-costs award was premised on inflated, unreasonable, and potentially fraudulent professional billing.  Given that special costs are paid into and out of law firm trust accounts, this pattern requires regulatory scrutiny of the Osler Hoskin & Harcourt LLP trust accounts involved. Taken together with the surrounding procedural irregularities, the billing conduct forms one of the earliest objective “hard signal” indicators of systemic misconduct.
 

Applicable Legal Framework
 

1. Bradshaw Construction Ltd. v. Bank of Nova Scotia (1991), 54 B.C.L.R. (2d) 309 (S.C.) at para. 44:

 

“Special costs are fees a reasonable client would pay a reasonably competent solicitor to do the work described in the bill.”

The notion that a reasonable client would pay 89 hours for a 20-minute hearing is untenable.  Bradshaw is plainly violated.
 

2. 1582235 Ontario Limited v. Ontario, 2020 ONSC 1279 at para. 27, adopting Enterprise Sibeca:

 

Bad faith includes acts “so markedly inconsistent with the relevant legislative context that a court cannot reasonably conclude they were performed in good faith.”.  Billing 89 hours for a 20-minute hearing—while the underlying file remains sealed and the opposing party is foreclosed from verifying the accounts—fits precisely within this category.
 

3. R. v. Wolkins, 2005 NSCA 2 at para. 89:

 

A miscarriage arises where conduct “shakes public confidence in the administration of justice.”

Inflated, opaque, and punitive costs on this scale—particularly where the underlying proceeding is sealed and the affidavits allege fraud—are emblematic examples of outcome-controlling unfairness.
 

4. Beals v. Saldanha, 2003 SCC 72 at paras. 218, 220:

Courts may refuse to enforce orders that:
 

• Involve “egregious conduct” (para. 220),

• Constitute a “judicial sniff test” failure, or

• “Shock the conscience of Canadians.”
   

An 8,325% markup on costs associated with a constrained sealed-file contempt motion falls squarely within Beals’ residual category of unenforceable, conscience-shocking orders.
 

5. Performance Industries v. Sylvan Lake, 2002 SCC 19 at paras. 64, 84–85:

 

“Fraud unravels everything.”  A court does not require immediate proof of fraud to act; irregularities in costs can justify discovery or further inquiry.
 

6. A Lawyer v. The Law Society of British Columbia, 2021 BCSC 914

Ironically, Justice Majawa—the same judge criticized for his role in S-229680 and S-220956—has elsewhere endorsed a broad, public-protection-oriented mandate for investigations into lawyers and their trust accounts.  In Lawyer (para. 63), he held that regulatory investigatory powers should be read expansively, not narrowly, so as not to “preclud[e] [regulators] from employing the best means to ‘uncover the truth’ and ‘protect the public’”, including investigation of a lawyer’s entire practice and trust accounts where necessary.
 

8. Chong v. Donnelly, 2019 ONCA 799 at para. 12:

 

Courts must exercise caution before entering a contempt finding where discretionary factors or broader context make such a finding unjust.

In this case, the penalty ($5,000) was eclipsed not by any legitimate compensatory logic, but by a massively inflated special-costs regime designed to punish beyond the contempt itself—contrary to Chong and the restraint traditionally associated with contempt proceedings.
 

February 8, 2023 – Police Counsel Refuses Acknowledgment of Service Despite Filed Affidavit of Service
 

On February 8, 2023, counsel for Halifax Regional Police refused to acknowledge personal service for the purpose of joining HRP to a Charter proceeding—even though an executed Acknowledgment of Service (AoS) was already on the court record.  The effect was to:
 

• Block joinder,

• Prevent production of police records, and

• Obstruct adjudication of constitutional claims directly concerning police conduct.
   

Applicable Legal Framework
 

1. Rule 3-7(5) – Acknowledgment of Service Is Conclusive Proof
 

Under the BC Supreme Court Civil Rules, once an AoS is signed and filed, it constitutes proof of service. Service is perfected; an opposing party cannot “un-acknowledge” or unilaterally negate it.
 

Applied:
 

• The AoS on file meant that service on police was legally complete.

• Counsel’s later refusal was without legal effect—a nullity.

• The registry was required to treat service as proven and to process joinder accordingly.
   

2. Rule 14-1(11) – Necessary Parties Must Be Joined
 

Rule 14-1(11) requires that a person whose interests may be affected by the relief sought must be joined (or at least given notice).  In a Charter proceeding challenging:
 

• Police obstruction,

• Police records and pejorative “MH” language,

• Non-response and mischaracterization,
   

the police are not peripheral actors; they are central respondents.
 

Applied: Refusing acknowledgment of service in the face of a filed AoS is, functionally, an attempt to evade necessary-party status, contrary to Rule 14-1(11).

 

3. Hill v. Hamilton-Wentworth, 2007 SCC 41 
 

Hill confirms that police are subject to civil liability for negligent or bad-faith investigations.  They cannot place themselves beyond judicial review.
 

Applied: Police counsel’s refusal to accept service—despite perfected proof—fits a pattern of attempting to avoid judicial scrutiny of policing conduct that is squarely in issue.  That posture runs against the spirit of Hill.

 

4. R. v. McNeil, 2009 SCC 3 
 

McNeil holds that information in police possession relevant to fairness, credibility, or Charter issues must be made available to the justice system. The state cannot unilaterally control the evidentiary record by withholding such material.
 

Applied: Refusing service, and thus joinder, blocked the court’s access to:
 

• Investigative files,

• Internal notes and communications containing “MH pejoratives”,

• Materials contradicting the public-facing reports.
   

This is directly at odds with McNeil’s insistence that relevant police information be available for judicial review.

 

5. Pintea v. Johns 
 

In a context where the subject is self-represented, technical resistance to joinder by a public authority—despite a filed AoS—creates barriers a represented litigant would be better positioned to overcome (e.g., through immediate applications, sanctions requests, etc.).
 

Applied: Allowing a public authority to block joinder in this way is precisely the sort of procedural trap Pintea says courts must guard against where an SRL is involved.

 

6. R. v. Babos, 2014 SCC 16 
 

Babos identifies abuse of process where state conduct:
 

• Undermines trial fairness; or

• Compromises the integrity of the justice system.
   

Applied:
 

• Fairness: The court cannot properly adjudicate Charter allegations against the police if the police, through counsel, refuse to be parties while simultaneously controlling key evidence.
   

• Integrity: A public institution denying service already proven by an AoS conveys the appearance that the institution can opt out of accountability.
   

This conduct fits comfortably within a Babos-style abuse: using procedural manoeuvres to prevent adjudication of serious rights-based claims.

 

Summary
 

Read together, Rule 3-7(5), Rule 14-1(11), Hill, McNeil, Pintea, and Babos support a simple principle:
 

A public authority cannot evade Charter scrutiny by refusing service that has already been perfected, nor can it avoid joinder where its conduct is at the heart of the proceeding.
 

February 8, 2023 marks the transition from passive non-cooperation to active obstruction by police counsel, further skewing the playing field against meaningful Charter adjudication.

 

February 23, 2023 – Majawa Summary Dismissal of S-229680 and Vexatious-Litigant Declaration
 

On February 23, 2023, Justice Majawa summarily dismissed the Charter proceeding S-229680, imposed special costs, and declared the subject vexatious, barring future access to the BC courts without leave.  The ruling characterized S-229680 as an impermissible duplicate of S-220956, even though:
 

• S-220956 was under appeal and still subject to case-management steps; and

• AGC counsel had earlier instructed the subject to re-file S-228567 as S-229680 under the CPA after S-228567 was sealed on November 7, 2022, thus admitting the relief sought was fundamentally different.
   

The dismissal ignored the PD-5 / CPA regime, joinder issues, service irregularities, and the Charter merits.  It is one of the sharpest inflection points in the chronology.  The declaration also foreclosed the subject's ability to address these matters in BC, even through the provincial court, and with respect to "any person or entity related to the subject matter".
 

Applicable Legal Framework
 

1. Pintea v. Johns – Fairness to Self-Represented Litigants ("SLRs")
 

Pintea makes clear that while SRLs must respect rules, courts and opposing parties must take reasonable steps to ensure SRLs are not unfairly disadvantaged.
 

Applied:
 

• The subject re-filed S-226567 as S-229680 following AGC counsel’s explicit suggestion—a sign of good faith, not abuse.

• Punishing that reliance with a vexatious designation reverses Pintea’s logic: instead of accommodating and guiding an SRL, the system penalized the subject for following institutional instructions in a complex, sealed-file environment.

 

2. Girao v. Cunningham, 2020 ONCA 260 – Structured Test for Vexatiousness
 

Girao emphasizes that:
 

• Vexatious-litigant orders require a careful, structured analysis;

• The court must distinguish between deliberate abuse and SRL missteps arising from complexity;

• Context—including procedural obstacles imposed by the system—must be weighed.
   

Applied:
 

• The re-filing of S-228567 as S-229680 was undertaken in reliance on AGC guidance and in response to a sealing order.

• The procedure in S-229680 was distorted by PD-5 abandonment, CMJ denial, pre-service sealing, and police refusal of service.

• There is no indication that a Girao-style structured analysis was undertaken.
   

On those facts, the legal threshold for vexatiousness was not met.

 

3. Jonsson v. Lymer, 2020 ABCA 167 
 

Jonsson warns that vexatious-litigant orders must not be used to silence litigants with legitimate claims, even if their approach is imperfect.
 

Applied: The subject’s claims—sealed-file irregularities, police conduct, corporate fraud, emerging-tech harassment, and Charter violations—are plainly substantive.  The February 23 order silenced those grievances rather than filtering out abusive litigation.

 

4. Baumann v. Dalrymple, 2019 BCSC 1547 – Special Costs Require Reprehensible Conduct
 

BC case law holds that special costs are reserved for:
 

• Reprehensible,

• Scandalous,

• Outrageous, or

• Clearly improper conduct.
   

Acting on opposing counsel’s procedural instruction and attempting to navigate sealed files, PD-5 reversals, and service obstruction is not misconduct, much less exceptional misconduct.
 

Applied: The award of special costs operates less as indemnification and more as punitive disablement, contrary to Baumann.

 

5. R. v. Wolkins (and similar appellate guidance) – Cumulative Procedural Unfairness
 

The NSCA and other appellate courts have repeatedly emphasized that procedural irregularities must be assessed cumulatively, not in isolation: even if individual steps might be defensible, their combined effect can render a proceeding fundamentally unfair.
 

Applied to S-229680, the cumulative picture includes:
 

• Pre-service sealing (Dec 13, 2022),

• PD-5 / CPA case-management obligations abandoned after AG intervention,

• Police counsel refusing service despite a filed AoS,

• No certification process under the CPA,

• No proper joinder of necessary parties,

• No Charter merits examination, and

• A vexatious declaration with special costs at the end.
   

Viewed cumulatively, the process was structurally incapable of producing a fair adjudication.

 

6. PD-5 and the Class Proceedings Act – Structural Preconditions Ignored
 

As noted earlier:
 

• PD-5 contemplates CMJ assignment and active case management;

• The CPA requires certification architecture and unified handling of common issues.
   

Applied: Proceeding through a summary dismissal, with a vexatious label, without a CMJ, without CPA-compliant certification or case-management conferences, and without a proper merits hearing, is inconsistent with the procedural architecture these instruments prescribe.

 

Summary
 

Across Pintea, Girao, Jonsson, Baumann, appellate guidance on cumulative unfairness, PD-5, and the CPA, a common rule emerges:

Vexatious-litigant designations and special-costs orders must not be imposed where procedural irregularities were created or amplified by the court or institutional respondents, particularly where an SRL acted in good faith on institutional guidance.
 

The February 23, 2023 ruling:
 

• Ignored pre-service sealing

• Punished the subject for following AG counsel’s own direction,

• Ignored mandatory case-management and class-proceeding structures,

• Failed to grapple with Charter merits,

• Filed to distinguish between the S-220956 appeal and S-229680

• Imposed punitive costs, and

• Extinguished access to the BC courts.
   

Within the chronology, S-229680 is the milestone where systemic procedural foreclosure was supported by court services and adjacent employees, resulting in institutional foreclosure.

March 23, 2023 – Public-Interest Website Launch
 

On March 23, 2023, the subject launched this public-interest website documenting:
 

• Corporate irregularities and CSR anomalies,

• Court-sealing practices and sealed-file anomalies,

• Police non-response and record-integrity concerns,

• Emerging AI-assisted harassment patterns,

• Neurotech ("Cognitive Liberty") crime; and

• Cross-jurisdictional procedural failures.
   

Biographical information was redacted; the content was evidence-driven and carefully archived.  The Attorney General was formally notified of the site in February 2024.
 

The site functions as:
 

• An evidence repository,

• A whistleblowing platform,

• A transparency mechanism compensating for improper sealing, and

• A counter-narrative to institutional mischaracterizations.
   

Applicable Legal Framework
 

1. Grant v. Torstar Corp., 2009 SCC 61 – Responsible Communication on Matters of Public Interest
 

Grant creates a defence for journalists and non-journalists who publish on matters of public interest while acting responsibly: verifying facts where possible, giving subjects an opportunity to respond, and treating contentious material with care.
 

Applied:
 

• The website addressed issues of clear public importance: governance of a tech company, police conduct, sealed-file practices, harassment linked to litigation, and emerging technology harms.

• The subject relied on documents, FOIPOP records, transcripts, and court materials, with redactions and contextualization.
   

This is the archetype of responsible communication that Grant seeks to protect.

 

2. Dagg v. Canada (Minister of Finance), [1997] 2 SCR 403 
 

Dagg emphasizes that access to information is fundamental to democratic accountability.
 

Applied: Where court processes and public institutions had placed key materials behind seals or in opaque internal records, the website restored a measure of transparency consistent with Dagg’s democratic rationale.

 

3. Charter s. 2(b) – Core Political and Institutional Expression
 

Section 2(b) protects:
 

• Criticism of government and institutions,

• Dissemination of information on public bodies, and

• Attempts to mobilize oversight via public debate.
   

Applied: The website’s content—detailing court processes, sealed files, police responses, and institutional behaviour—is squarely within the core of s. 2(b) expression.  Sealing orders cannot legitimately be stretched to prohibit citizens from speaking about their own experiences and public-interest concerns, provided genuinely confidential materials are respected.

 

4. Edmonton Journal v. Alberta (AG), Vancouver Sun (Re) 
 

These cases anchor the open-court principle in the Charter and stress that public scrutiny is essential to judicial legitimacy.
 

Applied: Where the courts themselves have, in the chronology, departed from open-court norms, a public-interest website documenting those departures is a Charter-aligned response, not an affront to the administration of justice.

 

5. WIC Radio Ltd. v. Simpson, 2008 SCC 40 
 

WIC Radio protects honestly-held opinions on matters of public interest, as long as they are based on facts that can be indicated to the audience.

Applied:  The website combines:
 

• Primary documents and timelines (facts), with

• Clearly signposted analysis and critique (comment).
   

That structure fits comfortably within the fair-comment paradigm and underscores that the site’s purpose is not to defame individuals but to present and interpret a record of systemic events.

 

Summary
 

The March 23 milestone reflects a constitutional pivot: as formal legal channels closed via sealing, non-joinder, vexatious orders, police obstruction, and non-response by oversight bodies, the subject turned to protected s. 2(b) expression—responsible, evidence-based public communication—to preserve and present the record.  Under the foregoing case law, that response is shielded and encouraged.

 

May 11–13, 2023 – Real or Near-Real-Time AI-Assisted Surveillance Pegged to a NS Health Record
 

At 12:35 PM on May 13, 2023, the subject was involuntarily detained under Section 14 of Nova Scotia's Involuntary Psychiatric Treatment Act following a routine back-yard bonfire that caught nearby foliage that occurred two days earlier.  Two police cars and a fire truck arrived within three minutes of the small fire spreading, which the subject had already put out prior to their arrival.  Emergency registration notes document:
 

• "Bizarre/paranoid behavior"

• "Struggling with paranoia that the military persecute him since Nov 2021"

• "Fire to flowers which burned wharf stairs" (actual event: the fire was out prior to arrival of police and FD)

• Police and fire department simultaneously arrive within three minutes of the flowers catching (a widely disproportionate response)
   

The subject was transported by a "big white van" (psychiatric mobile crisis unit), held for five hours at the QEII hospital under guard, and released with no clinical intervention as the transcript notes.  
 

Within minutes of the arrest, YouTube channel "Brittany The Intuitive Cosmic Wifey", a known actor contemplated in the AI-assisted psychological operations shown on this website, uploaded video titled "Ur So Special They Wasted time and $$ Coming for You" featuring:
 

1. Wilted flowers as an AI-generated visual motif (matching the "fire to flowers" in the sealed clinical notes)

2. White van imagery (matching the transport vehicle)

3. "They wasted time and money coming for you" (mirroring the mobile psychiatric response unit)

4. "You're so special" (target profiling)
    

Temporal proximity: < ten minutes from arrest.  The clinical record was sealed (not public), the detention was unannounced, and no media coverage existed.  Yet the content is acutely symbolically precise in close proximity to private events, within minutes.  This couples with an array of over fifty (50) social media accounts across a four-year period that reveals a persistent, systematic correlation between the subject's non-public legal and personal events and the subsequent appearance of thematically-matched online content.
 

Applicable Legal Framework
 

1. R. v. Wise, [1992] 1 S.C.R. 527
 

In R. v. Wise, the Supreme Court of Canada held that the use of an electronic tracking device is a search under s. 8 of the Charter, emphasizing that Charter protection extends to “all existing means” and future technologies that allow the state to electronically intrude on privacy.  The Court stressed that:
 

• Individuals have a reasonable expectation of privacy not only in their communications, but in their movements.

• There is a critical difference between casual observation and systematic, technologically enhanced surveillance.

• A fear of constant observation, even in public places, erodes the sense of freedom essential to a free society.
   

Applied:

The ultra-tight temporal and symbolic alignment between (a) a sealed psychiatric detention involving “wilted flowers”, a white psychiatric van, and a simultaneous police–fire response, and (b) a near-immediate video titled “Ur So Special They Wasted time and $$ Coming for You” featuring wilted flowers, a white van, and mirrored messaging, cannot be reasonably reconciled with coincidence.  If AI-assisted monitoring or data-mining of sealed records and real-time events is being used to generate tailored online content, Wise frames this as systematic surveillance—an intrusive search into the subject’s movements and circumstances, weaponized to create a continuous sense of being watched.
 

2. R. v. Ahmad, 2020 SCC 11 
 

In R. v. Ahmad, the SCC clarified the doctrine of entrapment, focusing on when the state:
 

• Creates an opportunity to commit an offence without reasonable suspicion, or

• Induces the commission of an offence by exploiting a person’s vulnerabilities or using manipulative tactics.
   

While Ahmad is a criminal case about “dial-a-dope” operations, it contains broader principles about state-initiated contact and manipulation: the state cannot manufacture circumstances that unduly pressure or shape an individual’s choices and then rely on the resulting conduct.
 

Applied:

Here, the concern is not inducement to crime but inducement to psychic destabilization: if AI-assisted actors (or those using privileged data) deliberately generate hyper-specific, mocking, or threatening content immediately after a sealed, coercive event (involuntary psychiatric detention), it mirrors the Ahmad pattern of state-initiated manipulation—contact that is crafted to exploit known vulnerabilities and to deepen fear, confusion, or perceived persecution.

 

3. Hunter v. Southam Inc., [1984] 2 SCR 145 – Prior Authorization for State Intrusion
 

Hunter establishes that state intrusions into privacy generally require prior judicial authorization; exigent circumstances are narrow exceptions.
 

Applied:
 

• Two fire trucks and multiple police in response to a two-minute, self-extinguished fire; and

• A later multi-unit police / social-work response ending in handcuffed hospital transport,
   

are not obviously exigent on the record described.  Absent a warrant or urgent risk, such intrusions and detentions are difficult to reconcile with Hunter’s baseline requirement.

 

4. R. v. Tessling, 2004 SCC 67 – Emerging Technologies and Enhanced Surveillance Capabilities
 

Tessling instructs courts to consider the capabilities of emerging technologies when assessing privacy expectations: if a technology reveals patterns, inferences, or intimate details not otherwise accessible, constitutional protection must track that power.
 

Applied: The pattern-responsive, “mirroring” nature of the harassment—especially the coordinated online/offline timing—is indicative of advanced, possibly AI-driven surveillance capabilities. Under Tessling, that technology-enhanced intrusive potential strengthens, not weakens, s. 8 protection.

 

5. R. v. Grant, 2009 SCC 32 – Detention and Loss of Autonomy
 

Grant defines detention as state conduct that:
 

• Significantly constrains liberty,

• Or communicates that compliance is compulsory.
   

Applied: On May 13, the subject was:
 

• Handcuffed,

• Transported involuntarily to a hospital,

• Held for approximately five hours.
   

This is classic detention under Grant.  If that detention was precipitated by algorithmic surveillance and disproportionate response, rather than concrete safety concerns, its lawfulness is in serious doubt.

 

6. R. v. Babos – Abuse of Process and State Interference with Justice
 

Babos identifies abuse of process where state conduct:
 

• Undermines fairness,

• Compromises the integrity of the justice system, or

• Constitutes unacceptable interference with ongoing proceedings.
   

Applied:
 

• The May 11–13 events occurred in the midst of live litigation and oversight efforts,

• They involved heavy-handed state responses that produced additional “MH”-coded records,

• They coincided with online mirroring that appears designed to intimidate and destabilize the subject.
   

This pattern supports an inference that surveillance and “wellness” mechanisms were used as behavioural-control tools.  That is exactly the sort of systemic integrity concern Babos was meant to address.

 

Summary
 

Across Wise, Ahmad, Marakah, Spencer, Hunter, Tessling, Grant, and Babos, a coherent rule emerges:
 

Emerging, technology-enhanced state surveillance and coercive responses engage the highest levels of Charter protection under ss. 7 and 8, and when deployed in a way that intersects with ongoing litigation and whistleblowing, they raise serious abuse-of-process concerns.
 

The May 11–13 milestone marks the point where:
 

• AI-assisted harassment patterns,

• Disproportionate emergency responses in timing and scope,

• Involuntary detention, and

• Real-time online mirroring
   

intersected in a way that cannot easily be dismissed as coincidence.  When placed in the chronology alongside sealing, discovery blockage, police non-cooperation, and vexatious-litigant sanctions, this sequence supports the subject’s contention that external, technologically mediated forces were used to reinforce institutional foreclosure and suppress both evidence and voice.
 

June 6, 2023 – Supreme Court of Canada Leave Application Filed
 

On June 6, 2023, the subject filed a leave application in the Supreme Court of Canada, together with several motions.  The record before the Court extended far beyond an individual shareholder dispute. It raised recurring, systemic questions about:
 

• sealing orders imposed without proper Dagenais/Mentuck/Sherman Estate analysis;

• discovery obstruction in the face of a neutral third-party roadmap (CRA, auditors, tech partner, numbered company);

• procedural treatment of self-represented litigants under escalating constraints;

• disproportionate security-for-costs orders and their impact on access to appellate review; and

• the use of vexatious-litigant designations to extinguish court access after an institutional actor had already instructed the subject to re-file.
   

From an objective perspective, the leave materials invited the Supreme Court to address not only whether the subject had been treated lawfully, but also whether Canadian courts can allow procedural irregularities and secrecy to cumulative­ly foreclose access to justice in cases engaging open-court, Charter, and institutional-accountability principles.
 

Applicable Legal Framework

1. Supreme Court Act, s. 40

Section 40 requires an applicant to demonstrate that the proposed appeal raises questions of public importance or issues of law that transcend the specific parties.  The Supreme Court has repeatedly treated the following as public-importance themes:
 

• correct application of the open-court principle and its limits;

• proper use of summary procedures where records are incomplete;

• structural treatment of self-represented litigants;

• national standards on costs and security for costs where access to justice is at stake; and

• systemic patterns of procedural unfairness that cannot be dismissed as isolated error.
   

The subject’s leave materials mapped onto all of these categories.  The issues were not merely factual; they asked whether Canadian courts may:
 

• maintain broad, largely unexplained sealing and protection orders in civil and Charter contexts;

• permit a neutral discovery roadmap to be displaced by compressed summary procedures;

• treat a self-represented litigant as vexatious for following an Attorney General office’s own procedural instructions; and

• use security-for-costs and special-costs regimes in ways that effectively close appellate doors.
   

Each of these questions, individually, meets the s. 40 public-importance test; together, they frame a national problem about procedural foreclosure.

2. Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration) v. Vavilov, 2019 SCC 65 

Vavilov confirms that appellate intervention is warranted where a decision fails to respect “legal constraints that bear on the decision-maker” or commits an error of central importance to the legal system as a whole (paras. 53–56, 108–110).
 

The leave record disclosed multiple such failures:
 

• sealing and protection orders issued or extended without applying Dagenais/Mentuck, Sierra Club, Sherman Estate, Vancouver Sun (Re);

• a discovery order (Cameron, April 1, 2022) effectively neutralized without appeal, contrary to CUPE-style finality;

• a vexatious declaration imposed where the subject had followed AGC instructions;

• class-proceeding and case-management rules (CPA, PD-5) ignored.
   

These are not marginal or fact-bound missteps; they implicate how courts across Canada must structure openness, discovery, case management, and SRL fairness.  Under Vavilov’s logic, they are precisely the type of “systemic” or “centrally important” errors that justify Supreme Court scrutiny.

3. R. v. Hinse, [1995] 4 S.C.R. 597 

Hinse recognizes that where an application reveals a plausible miscarriage of justice, the Court’s corrective role is engaged, even if the procedural path is complex or unusual. The concern is not limited to wrongful convictions; the jurisprudence extends the concept of “miscarriage” to situations where serious, entrenched procedural defects undermine legitimacy.
 

The subject’s narrative presented, inter alia:
 

• a CSR freeze and one-off derecognition policy in FY2020;

• a perjured CEO settlement affidavit;

• collapsed discovery following Cameron’s neutral order;

• broad, poorly justified sealing and protection orders;

• subsequent contempt, vexatiousness, and security measures used in ways that disabled participation.
   

Taken cumulatively, these facts illustrate not simply a hard case, but a structural breakdown in the safeguards designed to prevent unfair outcomes, squarely engaging Hinse-type concerns.

4. Sherman Estate v. Donovan, 2021 SCC 25 

Sherman Estate reiterates that court records are presumptively public and that any departure must satisfy a stringent three-part test: serious risk to an important public interest, no reasonable alternative, and proportionality (paras. 38–42, 60–66).  It also emphasizes that the justification for sealing must be re-assessed as a case progresses, including as it moves up the appellate ladder.
 

The leave application gave the Supreme Court its first opportunity to examine:
 

• the full sealing of Charter file S-228567 based largely on public-domain evidence;

• the sealing of S-229680 pre-service and pre-hearing;

• protection orders layered atop existing sealing in S-220956, coupled with discovery blockage.
   

Under Sherman Estate, the Court was invited to question whether these secrecy structures could be allowed to “travel upwards” unexamined, or whether they had to be recalibrated in light of later events—perjury allegations, billing scandals, and cross-jurisdictional enforcement.

5. Trial Lawyers Association of British Columbia v. British Columbia (AG), 2014 SCC 59

Trial Lawyers frames access to justice as a constitutional precondition for the legitimate operation of s. 96 courts (para. 39).  Measures that effectively prevent participation—whether court fees, security orders, or procedural devices—attract constitutional scrutiny.
 

The leave record documented:
 

• extraordinary special-costs awards and security requirements;

• sealing and protection orders constraining what could even be said in public or in new filings;

• a vexatious declaration that barred new proceedings without leave;

• interprovincial enforcement used to amplify the economic impact of those costs.
   

Viewed through Trial Lawyers, these were not isolated costs or security decisions; they formed a system of barriers that, in combination, effectively closed the courts to the subject.  The leave application thus squarely raised Trial Lawyers-type access-to-justice concerns.

6. Rules of the Supreme Court of Canada, Rule 54 

Rule 54 governs the mechanics of leave applications and presupposes timely and orderly treatment of materials.  Where delay or procedural drift exacerbates lower-court irregularities, fairness at the national level can itself be implicated.
 

In this case:
 

• the subject’s leave application and motions sat for over five (5) months (6 months if you count the SCC's July exception);

• by the time leave was refused, some of the requested interim safeguards had become moot;

• the lower-court enforcement machinery continued moving while national-level relief remained pending.
   

From an objective vantage, this raised a further procedural concern: that delay at the apex level allowed the very harms complained of—enforcement of irregular costs, foreclosure of proceedings—to crystallize before the merits of the systemic issues could be examined.
 

Seen in aggregate, the June 6, 2023 milestone marks a pivot: the subject moved from provincial and interprovincial forums into the only court capable of harmonizing the multiple strands—sealing law, SRL treatment, costs, and class/case-management—into a coherent national standard. The issues presented were squarely within the Supreme Court’s mandate, even if leave was ultimately refused.

 

June 28, 2023 – The Principal Solicitor-Client Billing Scandal is Manifested
 

By late June 2023, the overarching billing scandal had emerged in the record.  In British Columbia, approximately $400,000 in special costs had been claimed for nine short hearings totaling 867 minutes of court time (about 14.5 hours, a +9,000% uptick compared to tariff).  The invoices reflected 737.7 billable hours, with up to seven lawyers involved, including overlapping attendances by senior counsel and articled students at the same hearings.  Most of the overlap pertained to zoom meetings and overlapping "review" of the simple matters that had been reduced to 5-10 page templated briefs.  Counsel's affidavits claim the time was reasonably required, and that the client had paid.  By comparison, the respondent's counsel in NS had the same workload, and hearings were customarily billed at $500 per, with inflated billing in NS beginning to appear in 2025, in the neighborhood of $5,000 per appeal, as a barrier to further relief.  The characteristics of the BC billing scandal would reasonably require state-adjacent assurances and coordination.  No reasonable litigant agrees to a $400k retainer for what is expected to be a $4,500 tariff if he/she is successful.  No reputable law firm would offer it, and, no unbiased judge would certify and/or enforce it.  It neatly if not necessarily coincides with the other of the characteristics of the scandal.
 

When layered on top of sealing, discovery blockage, and procedural foreclosure, this billing pattern appeared less like compensation for work and more like an economic instrument capable of disabling a less-resourced litigant.  The amount exceeds the subject's life savings.
 

Applicable Legal Framework

1. 1582235 Ontario Ltd. v. Ontario, 2020 ONSC 1279 (“Enterprise Sibeca”) 

In Enterprise Sibeca, the court described bad faith in public-law and legal-services settings as conduct “so markedly inconsistent with the relevant legal framework or relationship that it cannot reasonably be viewed as in good faith.”  The precise wording varies, but the core idea is that where behaviour departs drastically from professional norms, the inference of bad faith becomes difficult to avoid.
 

Applied here:
 

• 737.7 hours billed against 14.5 hours of hearing time;

• multiple lawyers billing for the same simple interlocutory matters;

• block entries bearing no necessary relationship to procedural outputs.

• Billing well in excess of the Canadian annual average salary for just one brief hearing (in one case, over $78,000)
   

Those features are so inconsistent with ordinary practice in cost-sensitive litigation that they sit squarely within the Enterprise Sibeca bad-faith zone, commensurate with a Villaroman-based inference of state-adjacent third party interests and oversight.

2. Bradshaw Construction Ltd. v. Bank of Nova Scotia (1991), 54 B.C.L.R. (2d) 309 (S.C.) 

Bradshaw Construction articulates a central standard: special costs must reflect “what a reasonably competent solicitor would charge, and a reasonable client would pay, for the work actually done.”  They are exceptional, but not unlimited.
 

In this case, a “reasonable client” standard cannot reconcile:
 

• seven overlapping lawyers appearing for short chambers matters and agreed to by a frugal respondent;

• nearly 740 hours billed for fewer than 15 hours in court;

• cost figures approaching $400,000 for what, procedurally, involved routine interlocutory matters.
   

Under Bradshaw Construction, those figures push well past the boundary of what can plausibly be called reasonable.

3. Gichuru v. Smith, 2014 BCCA 414 

Gichuru holds that only objectively reasonable fees are recoverable as special costs (para. 155).  The court identified proportionality—between the work performed, the issues at stake, and the fees sought—as a key constraint.
 

The 89× multiplier between billed and actual hearing time, combined with overlapping counsel, is objectively able to shock the conscience of Canadians on fair view.  Complexity, urgency, and “all hands on deck” justification cannot credibly bridge that gap.

4. Smithies Holdings Inc. v. RCV Holdings Ltd., 2017 BCCA 177 

Smithies re-emphasizes that special costs are punitive rather than compensatory (para. 56).  They are meant to censure conduct, not to reimburse every dollar of effort.
 

In this context, the punitive nature of special costs collides with the billing data.  A pattern of excessive, overlapping, and disproportionate fees—secure in the knowledge that a less-resourced opposing party may never pay—risks transforming special costs into a tool of economic punishment, especially where underlying procedural irregularities already exist, as a state-sanctioned means for the respondent to recover his 2021 settlement payout.

5. Bradshaw v. Stenner, 2010 BCCA 139

Bradshaw v. Stenner provides a four-factor framework for assessing conflicting documents:
 

1. Internal consistency;

2. Temporal proximity to events;

3. Possible motivation to misstate or inflate;

4. Corroboration by independent evidence.
    

Applied to the billing records:
 

• Internal consistency: multiple time entries for the same short hearings, with several lawyers “attending” simultaneously, strain internal coherence;

• Temporal proximity: the billing entries are contemporaneous with clerk-recorded hearing times showing much shorter durations;

• Motivation: clear financial incentive to inflate billable units;

• Corroboration: Court Clerk's Notes confirm the real hearing durations, highlighting the gap between time recorded and time billed.
   

Under Bradshaw v. Stenner, these features strongly support the conclusion that the billing record lacks reliability.

6. R. v. Babos, 2014 SCC 16 

Babos defines abuse of process to include situations where conduct “undermines the integrity of the justice system” (para. 31).  While Babos is criminal, its abuse-of-process framework has been applied analogically in civil contexts where systemic practices erode public confidence.
 

The combination of:
 

• extreme cost inflation;

• layering of those costs atop sealed and procedurally compromised proceedings;

• cross-jurisdictional enforcement to amplify financial pressure,
   

raises exactly the type of systemic-confidence concern Babos addresses.  Reasonable observers could conclude that the goal had become financial incapacitation, not merits-based resolution.

7. Boucher v. Public Accountants Council (Ontario), 2004 CanLII 14579 (ON CA) 

Boucher stresses that costs must be proportionate to the issues, complexity, and amounts in dispute (para. 35).
 

Here:
 

• nine short hearings;

• a shareholder/Charter dispute of mid-scale financial scope;

• nearly $400,000 in claimed costs.
   

That magnitude is disproportionate by any standard Boucher contemplates.

8. Garland v. Consumers’ Gas Co., 2004 SCC 25 

Unjust enrichment requires: (1) enrichment of the defendant; (2) corresponding deprivation; (3) no juristic reason.
 

Applied to the billing scandal:
 

• enrichment: the law firm claims nearly $400,000;

• deprivation: the subject faces a corresponding obligation;

• juristic reason: no convincing legal basis explains an 89× multiplier for short chambers attendances.
   

On these facts, a restitutionary claim is at least prima facie engaged.

9. R. v. S. (R.D.), [1997] 3 S.C.R. 48

S. (R.D.) asks whether an informed person, viewing the matter realistically, would think the process was not fair (para. 111).
 

When the billing scandal is combined with:
 

• sealed proceedings,

• blocked discovery,

• punitive costs and security measures,

• and a meritless vexatious declaration,
   

an informed observer could reasonably perceive that the financial and procedural architecture had been aligned against the subject from early on.  The June 28 milestone thus reinforces an appearance that the process, taken as a whole, may have been structurally tilted rather than neutrally adjudicative.
 

Taken together, these authorities frame the second billing scandal not as an accounting anomaly but as a core rule-of-law problem: the justice system’s coercive instruments—costs and enforcement—were engaged in a way that appears incompatible with good faith, proportionality, and public confidence.  By way of terrible irony, the same case law justice Majawa authored in A Lawyer v. the Law Society of British Columbia would serve to unpack what happened here, in investigating the trust accounts at Osler, Hoskin, & Harcourt LLP.  This is not just unlawful enrichment, this is fraud.

 

July 12–21, 2023 – Rosinski Stay Hearing & Dismissal (First-Leg Billing Scandal)
 

On July 12, 2023, Justice Rosinski heard the subject’s motion in Nova Scotia to stay enforcement of the British Columbia costs judgment.  The application focused on the first leg of the billing scandal: roughly $400,000 in costs for nine short hearings, including one BC hearing where approximately 89 hours were billed for a matter that lasted around 20 minutes.
 

For the Nova Scotia stay hearing itself—a routine chambers appearance of 15–20 minutes—three overlapping lawyers billed a further 89 hours, replicating the same inflationary pattern the subject sought to challenge.
 

On July 21, 2023, Justice Rosinski dismissed the stay.  The reasons, as understood from the record, emphasized that it was “unlikely the SCC will take it” and described the situation as the subject having “sued in BC,” rather than engaging with:
 

• the RJR-MacDonald stay test (serious issue, irreparable harm, balance of convenience);

• the Beals fraud and natural-justice exceptions; or

• the detailed billing evidence demonstrating an 89× multiplier.
   

This left the subject exposed to enforcement of the contested BC costs without any meaningful judicial examination of the alleged fraud or systemic irregularities.
 

Applicable Legal Framework

1. Beals v. Saldanha, 2003 SCC 72 – Fraud and Natural-Justice Exceptions to Enforcement

Beals confirms that foreign (and, by extension, interprovincial) judgments will not be enforced where:
 

• the judgment was obtained by fraud; or

• enforcing it would offend natural justice).
   

The stay motion squarely invoked both:
 

• fraud: the 89× billing multiplier; overlapping lawyers; block-billing for minimal court time;

• natural justice: sealing, protection orders, blocked discovery, and procedural barriers in BC that prevented a full airing of the merits and corrective relief.
   

Under Beals, a court faced with such allegations must examine their substance before enforcing the judgment.  Dismissing the stay without that analysis deprives the Beals safeguards of practical effect.

2. R. v. Babos, 2014 SCC 16 

Babos frames abuse of process as conduct that compromises trial fairness or undermines the integrity of the justice system (para. 31).  The combination of:
 

• exorbitant costs;

• a documented pattern of billing inflation;

• and cross-jurisdictional enforcement without scrutiny,
   

raises a Babos-type concern: it suggests that the cost regime may have been used to financially suppress a litigant with serious procedural complaints, rather than to compensate for legitimate, proportionate work.

3. R. v. Tobiass, [1997] 3 S.C.R. 391

Tobiass holds that courts must intervene where the overall conduct of proceedings offends the community’s sense of fair play and decency.
 

From a reasonable observer’s standpoint:
 

• $40,000 for a ~20-minute Nova Scotia hearing,

• on top of ~$400,000 for nine short BC hearings,
   

is difficult to reconcile with any notion of fair play.  The stay motion provided the court with a chance to address that concern; the dismissal, without engagement, left the issue unexamined.

4. Boucher v. Public Accountants Council (Ontario), 2004 ONCA 14579 

Boucher requires courts to ensure costs are proportionate to the issues and work actually done (para. 35).  A short, routine stay hearing does not justify tens of thousands of dollars in fees.
 

Failure to assess proportionality—either in the underlying BC costs or in the Nova Scotia overlay—amounts to a departure from Boucher’s proportionality requirement.

5. Garland v. Consumers’ Gas Co., 2004 SCC 25 

The stay motion also implicitly engaged unjust enrichment principles: a party should not be enriched by costs that dramatically exceed any plausible work.  A stay is the natural procedural mechanism to prevent enforcement and allow a restitutionary claim to be explored.

6. Karasiewicz v. Collins, 2021 ONSC 4953 & Labatt Brewing Co. v. NHL, 2011 ONCA 511 

These authorities emphasize that courts must decide motions based on grounds advanced by the parties, not new bases introduced by the court (Karasiewicz, para. 114; Labatt, para. 15).
 

In the stay motion:
 

• the judge wrote at paragraph (1) of his decision that the subject had been "successfully sued in BC by the Respondents"; a facially incorrect claim that neither party had advanced. 

• the subject advanced Beals fraud/natural-justice grounds, proportionality concerns, and abuse-of-process arguments;

• the dismissal instead turned on the court’s prediction that the SCC was “unlikely” to grant leave—an issue not argued by either party and not part of the established stay test.

• the false narrative set by the judge, atop a sealed file, coincides with the SCC registry delay (until the NS appeal had completed), and the SCC's subsequent dismissal of a file that should attract national attention.
   

7. RJR-MacDonald Inc. v. Canada (AG), [1994] 1 S.C.R. 311

RJR-MacDonald sets out a three-part test for interlocutory relief:
 

1. a serious issue to be tried;

2. irreparable harm if relief is denied;

3. balance of convenience.

Applied here:
 

• Serious issue: fraud and natural-justice defects in the BC proceedings;

• Irreparable harm: enforcement of $400,000+ in contested costs against a financially vulnerable litigant;

• Balance of convenience: overwhelmingly favoured maintaining the status quo until the fraud and procedural complaints were adjudicated.
   

The reasons, as understood, do not engage with these factors. Substituting a prediction about SCC leave for the RJR-MacDonald test is a misapplication of the governing framework.

8. Vavilov v. Canada (AG), 2019 SCC 65 

Vavilov requires decision-makers to grapple with the central issues and evidence (para. 127).  Here, that included:
 

• the 89× multiplier;

• clerk-confirmed hearing durations;

• comparative NS cost data;

• the pattern of procedural irregularities in BC.
   

A bare statement about SCC leave likelihood does not meet the Vavilov standard of responsive, evidence-based reasoning.

9. Pintea v. Johns, 2017 SCC 23 

Pintea stresses that courts must adapt procedures so that self-represented litigants are not unfairly disadvantaged (para. 4).  The subject’s stay motion was a last structural safeguard against immediate enforcement of suspect costs.
 

Refusing the stay without engaging the evidence, and while the subject had limited means and no counsel, conflicts with Pintea’s fairness mandate.  It exposed the subject to execution risk before appellate bodies or the SCC could even consider the underlying issues.

10. R. v. C.P., 2021 SCC 19 

At paragraph 137, Iacobucci J. held; “There is no basis to believe that a serious argument pointing to a miscarriage of justice would not meet the public interest standard for leave to appeal to the Court [...] The Supreme Court would and does exercise its leave requirement in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice."

Summary
 

Taken together, these authorities show that the July 12–21 sequence was not a routine discretionary denial.  It was a missed opportunity to apply Beals, RJR-MacDonald, Babos, Boucher, Vavilov, and Pintea, allowing a heavily contested and facially disproportionate cost regime to be enforced without meaningful scrutiny.  It bore all the hallmarks of a choreographed enforcement frame that covered the evidence.

 

August 24, 2023 – NSCA Security for Costs Order (Beaton J.A.)
 

On August 24, 2023, Justice Beaton of the Nova Scotia Court of Appeal ordered security for costs in an amount approximately ten times higher than the benchmark recognized in prior appellate jurisprudence.  The order was made despite:
 

• the subject’s well-documented financial collapse following security demands and enforcement steps;

• the subject’s self-represented status;

• clear evidence of scandal on the record;

• the public-importance issues raised by the proposed appeal, including Beals fraud/natural-justice concerns and systemic billing irregularities.
   

No detailed analysis appears to have been undertaken with respect to the mandatory factors governing security for costs, and the practical effect of the order was to extinguish the subject’s ability to proceed with the appeal.
 

Applicable Legal Framework

1. Power v. Power, 2013 NSCA 10 

In Power, the NSCA indicated that security for costs should normally be capped around 40% of anticipated appeal costs and must never operate as a de facto bar to appellate review or chill appellate recourse in a "pay as you go" justice system.  Here, the ordered security was roughly 12.5× that benchmark ($500 lower court matter x 40% = $200 x 12.5 = $2,500)
 

Under Power, such an order exceeds protective purposes and becomes a gate-closing mechanism.

2. Williams Lake Indian Band v. Kimberly-Lloyd, 2011 BCCA 192

Williams Lake (persuasive authority) confirms that security should be reserved for exceptional circumstances and must not be used to stifle appeals where serious issues exist.
 

The subject’s appeal raised:
 

• facially-evident fraud in billing;

• potential misapplication of Beals;

• systemic abuse-of-process concerns.
   

Those are precisely the kinds of serious issues that militate against security, not in favour of it.

3. Okanagan Indian Band v. Oliver (Town), 2019 BCCA 330 

Okanagan holds that where appeals raise public-importance questions, security should often be reduced or waived (para. 18).
 

The appeal at issue addressed:
 

• enforcement of suspected fraudulent cost awards;

• proportionality and access-to-justice norms;

• the operation of national safeguards in Beals and Trial Lawyers.
   

Under Okanagan’s logic, the public-law dimension weighed strongly against a high security order.

4. Little Sisters Book and Art Emporium v. Canada, 2007 SCC 2 – Costs Cannot Chill Legitimate Claims

Little Sisters cautions that disproportionate costs can chill or prevent legitimate claims, particularly where Charter or systemic issues are involved (para. 37).
 

The pattern here—BC special costs, NS stay-hearing costs, and now elevated security—collectively functions as a cross-jurisdictional chill. Legitimate systemic concerns about billing, sealing, and abuse of process were likewise omitted from the decision.

5. Rule 90.37, Nova Scotia Civil Procedure Rules

Rule 90.37 requires the court to consider:
 

• the merits of the appeal;

• the appellant’s ability to pay;

• the risk of unrecoverable costs;

• the overall balance of convenience.
   

The record suggests:
 

• Merits: the appeal raised non-frivolous, serious issues;

• Ability to pay: a half-million dollar billing scandal had manifested

• Risk: respondents were institutional actors sponsored by the federal government, not fragile private litigants;

• Balance: strongly favoured enabling appellate scrutiny before further enforcement.
   

An order made without clear engagement with these factors is, at minimum, vulnerable as an arbitrary exercise of discretion.

6. Yaiguaje v. Chevron Corporation, 2017 ONCA 827 
 

At paragraph 15; "The motion judge found that the appellants had not established that they were impecunious or that third party litigation funding was unavailable.  Because impecuniosity had not been established, the motion judge ruled that the appellants had to demonstrate that their claim has a good chance of success."
 

Applied:

Security for costs motions, when read through Yaiguaje, become a gatekeeping device that invites the court to pre-judge the merits of the appeal at an interlocutory stage. Instead of simply protecting against unenforceable cost awards, the motion judge is effectively required to conduct a preliminary merits assessment (“good chance of success”) before the appeal is even heard.  In practice, this permits security for costs to function as a backdoor summary dismissal / leave test, allowing respondents to litigate the strength of the appeal twice: first on the security motion, and again (if the appellant survives) on the appeal proper.
 

Viewed in light of Power, Williams Lake, Okanagan, Little Sisters, Yaiguaje, and Rule 90.37, the August 24, 2023 milestone represents the point at which appellate access itself was effectively withdrawn.  Security for costs, a tool meant to protect respondents from unrecoverable costs, was applied in a way that ensured no appellate court would ever review the combined effects of sealing, discovery blockage, vexatious designation, and the dual billing scandals.

 

Summary
 

Across June–August 2023, the proceedings had shifted from provincial irregularity to national foreclosure:
 

• The SCC leave application framed the case as a test of sealing law, SRL treatment, and access to justice under s. 40 of the Supreme Court Act.

• The second billing scandal exposed cost patterns that, when measured against Bradshaw, Gichuru, Smithies, Boucher, Garland, and Babos, are difficult to reconcile with good faith or proportionality.

• The Rosinski stay sequence declined to engage Beals, RJR-MacDonald, or the core billing evidence, instead relying on speculative SCC-leave reasoning.

• The Beaton security order converted an already steep procedural hill into a wall, functionally barring appellate scrutiny in Nova Scotia.
   

Taken together with prior phases, the proceedings show the institutional response reaching a kind of closure point: the combination of secrecy, discovery obstruction, punitive cost regimes, and oversized security orders produced not just an unfavourable outcome for the subject, but a practical exclusion from the justice system at precisely the moment when national-level correction was most needed.  It gets far worse.
 

October 10, 2023 – Van den Eynden Sealing Extension (Off-Day, Ensconced Hearing)
 

On October 10, 2023, Justice Van den Eynden J.A. conducted an off-day, ensconced hearing in what was presented as a consensual, modest-redaction motion.  The subject sought narrow, surgical redactions.  Instead, Van den Eynden extended a blanket seal over the entire appellate file, an act that is likewise juxtaposed against the precedents she had set in other matters.  
 

The practical outcome was a continued blackout of the appellate record, even while the corresponding Supreme Court of Canada leave file existed only in skeletal form on the public docket, and in a manner that omitted mention of the "meat and potatoes" probative issues.  The public, media, and members of the public remained unable to access probative materials central to the administration of justice.  As far as they were concerned, the matter was a private dispute in well-functioning courts that found the respondents in favor, and the subject, a bad actor undeserving of any access to justice.
 

From an objective vantage, this milestone reflects court-authored censorship: the extension of blanket secrecy where only limited redaction was requested, contrary to the constitutional presumption of openness and the Supreme Court’s established sealing frameworks.
 

Applicable Legal Framework
 

1. Dagenais v. Canadian Broadcasting Corp., [1994] 3 S.C.R. 835 & R. v. Mentuck, 2001 SCC 76
 

The Dagenais–Mentuck test governs publication bans and functionally analogous secrecy measures (including many sealing orders).  It requires that a court be satisfied that:
 

1. The order is necessary to prevent a serious risk to the proper administration of justice (or another important public interest), because reasonably available alternative measures will not prevent the risk; and
    

2. The salutary effects of the order outweigh its deleterious effects, particularly on the open-court principle and freedom of expression.
    

Consent of the parties is never sufficient; a court must independently apply this test.
 

Applied:
 

• The subject sought modest redaction, not a renewed full seal.
   

• Extending blanket sealing required a fresh Dagenais–Mentuck analysis: identifying a serious risk, assessing alternatives (redaction, anonymization, delayed access), and weighing proportionality.
   

• The extension, as described, did not:

  • Identify a specific, serious risk tied to particular categories of information;

  • Explain why a the court's discretionary power was used to upend a consensual motion and elicit unconstitutional effects;

  • Explain why NS Rule 84 did not apply;

  • Explain why redactions (expressly requested) were inadequate; or

  • Address the deleterious effects on public scrutiny and appellate transparency.
     

On that account, the extension is difficult to reconcile with the Dagenais–Mentuck framework.

 

2. Sierra Club of Canada v. Canada (Minister of Finance), 2002 SCC 41
 

In Sierra Club, the Court held that confidentiality orders are exceptional and must be minimally impairing, favouring redaction and narrower measures over full sealing, provided the narrower measures can address the risk (paras. 53–57).
 

Applied:
 

• The subject’s motion expressly sought targeted redactions.

• Renewing full sealing over the entire appellate file is the most impairing measure available.

• Rejecting the redaction route without explaining why redaction could not adequately protect any identified interest in confidentiality reverses Sierra Club’s hierarchy, which treats full sealing as a last resort, not a default.
   

3. Sherman Estate v. Donovan, 2021 SCC 25
 

Sherman Estate modernizes the sealing-order test and stresses that any such order requires:
 

1. A serious risk to an important public interest (e.g., physical safety, public-aspect privacy/dignity);

2. Proof that the order is necessary, in the sense that reasonable alternatives (redaction, partial sealing, anonymization) will not prevent the risk; and

3. A proportionality analysis: the benefits of confidentiality must outweigh the harm to the open-court principle (paras. 38–42, 60–66).
    

Crucially, Sherman Estate emphasizes that sealing justifications must be reassessed over time as the case evolves (para. 38).
 

Applied:
 

• By October 2023, the litigation posture had shifted: the subject’s disputes were now in an appellate and national-importance context, and questions about costs, discovery, harassment, and procedural integrity had intensified.

• Extending a blanket seal at this stage, without revisiting whether any ongoing “serious risk” remained and without considering narrower alternatives, is the opposite of the ongoing reassessment Sherman Estate requires.

• Instead of diminishing as the case moved upward, secrecy expanded.
   

4. Canadian Broadcasting Corp. v. Named Person, 2024 SCC 21
 

In CBC v. Named Person, the Supreme Court dealt with one of the most secrecy-sensitive domains in Canadian law: informer privilege. Even there, the Court stressed that:
 

• The open-court principle continues to apply, and

• Measures such as redactions, anonymized reasons, and structured public dockets must be employed to avoid creating de facto secret trials.
   

The Court recognized the need for confidentiality but insisted on maintaining a public-facing structure—reasons and a visible record, albeit redacted where necessary.
 

Applied:
 

• If informer-privilege matters must retain a public footprint, a civil/Charter appellate file grounded largely in documentary and corporate records should not be sealed in toto without detailed justification.

• Extending blanket sealing over an entire appellate file—covering corporate records, affidavits, harassment evidence, and procedural materials—runs against the tailoring logic affirmed in CBC v. Named Person.

 

5. Sorensen v. Swinemar, 2020 NSCA 62 (Van den Eynden J.A.)
 

In Sorensen v. Swinemar, the Nova Scotia Court of Appeal, per Van den Eynden J.A., emphasized that lower courts are bound by existing Supreme Court of Canada Charter frameworks and cannot casually depart from or ignore settled constitutional principles.
 

Applied:
 

• The constitutional architecture governing openness (Dagenais–Mentuck, Sierra Club, Sherman Estate, etc.) was well settled by 2023.

• An off-day, opaque hearing that treats sealing as presumptive, ignores the consensual basis of the motion, ignores the legal tests, ignores Rule 84, ignores the characteristics of the record, and keeps the record sealed, especially in the midst of an SCC docket evaluation, is directly antagonistic to the very precedent she had written in Swinemar.  
   

6. Vancouver Sun (Re), 2004 SCC 43
 

In Vancouver Sun, the Court reaffirmed that:
 

• The open-court principle is the constitutional default.

• Court records and proceedings are presumptively open, and

• Even where parties agree, judges must independently ensure any limit on openness meets constitutional standards (para. 25).
   

7. Roncarelli v. Duplessis, [1959] S.C.R. 121

Discretionary power cannot be exercised for an improper purpose or in a manner inconsistent with the governing legal framework.  A discretion purportedly exercised "because the law permits it" but actually used to suppress or punish lawful activity is unlawful.

Applied: Using sealing powers not to protect a legitimate confidentiality interest, but to insulate a troubling record from public view, and foreclose scrutiny as the matter climbs the appellate ladder, is a classic Roncarelli-style abuse of power.

8. Housen v. Nikolaisen, 2020 SCC 33

While appellate courts owe deference on questions of discretion and fact, they may intervene for errors of law or where the exercise of discretion is unreasonable in light of the legal constraints and evidence.  

Applied: An order that (1) ignores binding openness jurisprudence, (2) expands secrecy when redaction was consented, and (3) fails to identify risk crosses from mere "debatable" into unreasonable within Housen's framework.
 

Summary
 

Taken together, Dagenais, Mentuck, Sierra Club, Sherman Estate, CBC v. Named Person, Sorensen v. Swinemar, and Vancouver Sun establish that:
 

• Sealing is exceptional, not routine;

• Redaction and narrower measures are presumptively preferred over full sealing;

• Every extension of a sealing order requires fresh, evidence-based justification;

• Discretionary power cannot be used for improper purposes;

• Consent or convenience cannot substitute for a proper constitutional analysis; and

• The scope of secrecy should generally shrink, not expand, as cases move up the appellate ladder.
   

The October 10, 2023 ensconced hearing did the opposite: it expanded blanket secrecy in response to a request for modest redaction, without transparent engagement with the governing tests. In the chronology, this is the point at which the appellate record was further insulated from public scrutiny at the very moment higher-court oversight was most needed.

October 26, 2023 – SCC Certiorari Motion Filed
 

On October 26, 2023, the subject filed a certiorari motion at the Supreme Court of Canada.  The motion did not merely contest isolated errors; it consolidated a systemic pattern, including:
 

• Approximately $400,000 in fees for nine brief hearings (737.7 billed hours vs. ~14.5 hours of court time);

• Discovery obstruction despite an extant order;

• Sealing orders issued and extended without proper analysis;

• Use of a vexatious-litigant declaration in BC after the subject followed Attorney General counsel’s procedural instructions;

• Algorithmically patterned harassment and neurotech-linked interference intersecting with emergency and psychiatric response pathways;

• Severe access-to-justice barriers: punitive costs, disproportionate security for costs, and sealing preventing record access.
   

The motion essentially asked whether, in light of this cumulative pattern, the Supreme Court should intervene via prerogative relief where ordinary appellate routes had been structurally disabled.
 

Applicable Legal Framework
 

1. 1582235 Ontario Ltd. v. Ontario, 2020 ONSC 1279 (the “Enterprise Sibeca test")
 

In 1582235 Ontario, the Court, drawing on the “Enterprise Sibeca” line, described bad faith as conduct “so inconsistent with the legal context or the relationship between the parties that it cannot reasonably be viewed as consistent with good faith” (approx. para. 127).
 

Applied:
 

• Billing 737.7 hours for ~14.5 hours of actual hearing time;

• Multiple overlapping lawyers billing for the same brief attendances;

• Using those invoices to obtain massive cost awards against a less-resourced self-represented litigant;

• Blocking discovery and using sealing to shield irregularities.
   

Taken together, these are difficult to reconcile with ordinary good-faith legal practice.  The certiorari motion presented these patterns as paradigmatic bad faith under the Enterprise Sibeca standard.

 

2. R. v. Babos, 2014 SCC 16
 

Babos provides the modern framework for abuse of process, emphasizing cumulative state conduct that either compromises trial fairness or undermines public confidence in the administration of justice (para. 31).
 

Applied:
 

• The motion did not allege a single misstep; it mapped a cross-jurisdictional sequence:
  BC sealing → discovery denial → summary dismissal → vexatious declaration → inflated costs → NS stay refusal → excessive security for costs → appellate sealing extension → algorithmic harassment intersecting with state response.

• Under Babos, this sort of pattern must be evaluated in its entirety, not reduced to isolated incidents.

• Certiorari was invoked precisely because ordinary appellate pathways had been constrained or foreclosed by that pattern.
   

3. Criminal Code ss. 380 & 462.31 (Fraud and Proceeds of Crime)
 

Section 380 criminalizes obtaining economic advantage through deceit, falsehood, or other fraudulent means.  Section 462.31 addresses laundering or dealing with proceeds of crime.
 

Applied:
 

• Presenting massively inflated hours as genuine work product, using those figures to obtain cost awards, and then enforcing those awards across jurisdictions raises at least a fraud-adjacent concern.

• The certiorari motion invited the Court to consider whether the judicial process had been used, or risked being used, as an instrument of extraction in a way engaging the criminal-law concepts of fraud and proceeds.

 

4. Slattery (Trustee of) v. Slattery, [1993] 3 S.C.R. 430
 

In Slattery, the Supreme Court endorsed the use of CRA records under statutory confidentiality mechanisms (now including Income Tax Act s. 241(3.1)) to resolve financial and asset-related disputes, subject to protective measures (see generally para. 27).
 

Applied:
 

• Master Cameron’s April 1, 2022 order sought CRA evidence concerning share transfers, derecognition practices, and corporate valuation—the same axis of factual dispute that underpins the broader chronology.

• Subsequent sealing and summary filings effectively neutralized that Slattery-compatible discovery path.

• The certiorari motion invited the Supreme Court to restore the CRA-evidence pathway as part of a broader truth-seeking exercise.
   

5. Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, ss. 7, 8, 15
 

• Section 7 (life, liberty, security of the person): The motion documented neurotech-linked and algorithmically patterned harassment, emergency/psychiatric interventions, and sealed processes that collectively affected the subject’s psychological integrity and liberty.

• Section 8 (search and seizure): The pattern-responsive harassment, temporally synchronized media content, and coordinated institutional responses suggested surveillance of digital and physical activities of the sort at issue in cases like R. v. Ahmad, R. v. Spencer, Hunter v. Southam, and R. v. Tessling (all of which stress the need for prior authorization and heightened privacy protections when emerging technologies enable intrusive monitoring).

• Section 15 (equality): The combination of sealing, punitive costs, and security orders produced a form of systemic unequal treatment for a self-represented, financially compromised litigant, contrasting sharply with the procedural resilience typically available to institutionally backed parties.
   

The certiorari motion integrated these Charter dimensions into a single, systemic narrative.

 

6. R. v. Hinse, [1995] 4 S.C.R. 597
 

In Hinse, the Court recognized that extraordinary relief is appropriate where there is a “genuine, serious question of justice” requiring intervention.
 

Applied:
 

• The certiorari record raised multiple such questions: fraud indicators, discovery obstruction, unconstitutional sealing, vexatiousness misuse, surveillance-linked state responses, and cross-jurisdictional access-to-justice failures.

• The motion argued that these questions could not be adequately addressed through traditional appeals, which had been constrained by the very irregularities in issue.

 

7. MacMillan Bloedel Ltd. v. Simpson, [1995] 4 S.C.R. 725
 

MacMillan Bloedel confirms the inherent jurisdiction of superior courts, including the authority to issue prerogative writs such as certiorari to prevent abuse of process and to safeguard the rule of law.
 

Applied:
 

• Invoking certiorari at the Supreme Court level was framed as an appeal to that inherent supervisory function: where ordinary procedural channels fail, prerogative relief remains as a tool to prevent systemic abuse and jurisdictional distortion.
   

8. Dunsmuir v. New Brunswick, 2008 SCC 9 & Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration) v. Vavilov, 2019 SCC 65
 

Both Dunsmuir and Vavilov emphasize that meaningful judicial review is essential to maintaining the rule of law.  Vavilov, in particular, stresses that errors touching questions of central importance to the legal system or the administration of justice require heightened attention.
 

Applied:
 

• The certiorari motion framed the pattern of sealing, costs, and procedural foreclosure as precisely such a system-level error.

• It argued that without Supreme Court intervention, there would be no meaningful review of those central issues: sealing practice, access to evidence, economic suppression through costs, and technologically mediated interference with litigation.
   

9. Skogman v. The Queen, [1984] 2 S.C.R. 93
 

In Skogman, the Supreme Court clarified the proper scope of certiorari in relation to inferior tribunals (there, a preliminary inquiry judge). Drawing on Douglas Aircraft Co. v. McConnell and related authorities, the Court held that:
 

 

"Certiorari remains available… only where it is alleged that the tribunal has acted in excess of its assigned statutory jurisdiction or has acted in breach of the principles of natural justice, which, by the authorities, is taken to be an excess of jurisdiction (see Forsythe v. The Queen).  It need only be added by way of emphasis that such certiorari review does not authorize a superior court to reach inside the functioning of the statutory tribunal for the purpose of challenging a decision reached by that tribunal within its assigned jurisdiction on the ground that the tribunal committed an error of law in reaching that decision, or reached a conclusion different from that which the reviewing tribunal might have reached."
 

Applied:
 

• The October 26, 2023 certiorari motion to the Supreme Court of Canada was not framed as an invitation to re-litigate ordinary errors of law or to substitute the Court’s view on the merits of costs, sealing, or contempt.
   

• Instead, it alleged that multiple tribunals and courts had:

  • Acted beyond their lawful authority (e.g., sealing without jurisdiction or proper test; using vexatiousness and security for costs to effectively bar access to appeals; enforcing facially irrational, fraud-adjacent costs), and

  • Operated in breach of natural justice (denial of meaningful participation, sealed reasons, blocked discovery, structurally disabled routes of review).
     

Under Skogman, these are precisely the circumstances in which certiorari is available: not to correct every legal error, but to address jurisdictional overreach and fundamental fairness breaches that distort the functioning of the justice system itself.

Summary
 

Across the foregoing case law, the certiorari motion presented:
 

• A coherent theory of bad faith and abuse, rooted in concrete billing records and procedural history;

• A Charter-integrated narrative of liberty, privacy, and equality harms;

• A claim that ordinary appellate channels had been structurally disabled by the very defects they were supposed to correct.
   

In the chronology, October 26 marks the point at which the subject placed the entire procedural architecture before the Supreme Court and asked whether the justice system, taken as a whole, had functioned in a way compatible with the rule of law.  As it turned out, the motion was never adjudicated.  Paired alongside the leave applications, it was dismissed automatically prior to a hearing, and prior to response submissions.

 

December 4, 2023 – NSCA Appeal Dismissed in ~5 Minutes
 

On December 4, 2023, the Nova Scotia Court of Appeal dismissed the subject’s appeal in approximately five minutes.
 

• No respondent submissions were required.

• No oral or written reasons were delivered.

• The appellate file remained fully sealed, preventing the public from understanding the basis for the outcome.
   

This outcome followed a sequence of earlier events: Rosinski J.’s stay dismissal relying on extraneous considerations, Beaton J.A.’s disproportionate security-for-costs order, and Van den Eynden J.A.’s sealing extension.  Given that the legal error was obvious in mischaracterizing the file differently than the parties had presented, this dismissal by a three-judge panel again bears the hallmarks of institutional capture.  The subject, for his part, followed the NS procedural roadmap with textbook precision.
 

Applicable Legal Framework
 

1. R. v. Sheppard, 2002 SCC 26
 

In Sheppard, the Supreme Court held that where reasons are so deficient that appellate review is effectively impossible, this can constitute an error of law (para. 55).  Reasons need not be lengthy, but they must provide some insight into the path of reasoning.
 

Applied:
 

• A five-minute dismissal with no reasons—oral or written—leaves no basis to determine:

  • Whether the Court applied the correct legal tests (e.g., for sealing, for enforcement, for abuse of process);

  • Whether central evidence (billing records, discovery obstruction, sealing concerns) was considered; or

  • Whether the appeal was treated as arguable or merely as a docket-management problem.
     

• By analogy with Sheppard, the absence of any reasons at all makes meaningful review and public understanding impossible.
   

2. Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration) v. Vavilov, 2019 SCC 65
 

Vavilov stresses that reasons are a primary mechanism by which decision-makers demonstrate that they have “grappled with the key issues” and acted in a manner consistent with legal constraints (paras. 81, 127–128).
 

Although Vavilov addresses administrative decisions, its rule-of-law rationale applies more broadly: without reasons, neither the parties nor the public can verify that the law was followed.
 

Applied:
 

• The NSCA dismissal did not show any engagement with:

  • The stay-test framework (RJR-MacDonald);

  • The Beals fraud / natural-justice exceptions;

  • The proportionality and access-to-justice principles engaged by security for costs (Power v. Power, Trial Lawyers);

  • The openness and sealing jurisprudence (Vancouver Sun, Sherman Estate).
     

• The absence of reasons is, at minimum, in tension with the transparency and justification values emphasized in Vavilov.
   

 

3. R. v. S. (R.D.), [1997] 3 S.C.R. 484
 

R.D.S. articulates the test for reasonable apprehension of bias: whether an informed person, viewing the matter realistically and practically, would conclude that the decision-maker might not decide fairly (para. 111).
 

Applied:
 

• A “hearing” lasting only a few minutes, without respondent submissions, without reasons, and following a series of earlier irregularities (anchoring error, excessive security, sealing extension) creates an appearance that:

  • The outcome may have been pre-determined;

  • The hearing functioned as a formality rather than genuine adjudication; and

  • The sealed materials may never have been meaningfully reviewed.
     

• This cumulative appearance raises a serious R.D.S. concern, particularly given the subject’s documented vulnerability and the systemic issues at stake.

 

4. R. v. Wolkins, 2005 NSCA 2
 

In Wolkins, the NSCA emphasized the need to assess cumulative procedural unfairness, not just isolated irregularities (para. 71).
 

Applied:
 

• By December 4, 2023, the subject had already experienced:

  • A stay dismissal based on extraneous considerations;

  • A highly elevated security-for-costs order;

  • An appellate sealing extension;

  • Cross-jurisdictional costs and sealing anomalies.
     

• A five-minute sealed dismissal, without reasons, is precisely the kind of event that Wolkins suggests should trigger careful, cumulative fairness analysis—not rapid termination.
   

 

5. Sherman Estate v. Donovan, 2021 SCC 25 & Vancouver Sun (Re), 2004 SCC 43
 

As above, these cases require any departure from open courts to be:
 

• Justified by a serious risk to an important interest;

• Minimally impairing; and

• Accompanied by transparent reasoning.
   

Applied:
 

• Maintaining full sealing over an appellate dismissal with no reasons:
   

  • Eliminates public access to both the evidence and the judicial rationale;

  • Prevents media or civil society from assessing whether the disposition was lawful; and

  • Forecloses any possibility that the decision will assist future litigants facing similar issues.
     

• This runs counter to the idea that “open courts belong to the public,” a central holding in Vancouver Sun.
   

 

6. Baker v. Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration), [1999] 2 S.C.R. 817
 

Baker requires decision-makers to be “alert, alive and sensitive” to the circumstances of those affected, particularly where vulnerability is evident.
 

Applied:
 

• The subject’s vulnerability had been documented throughout:
   

  • Financial collapse;

  • Health impacts;

  • Exposure to harassment and surveillance;

  • Multiple sealed and procedurally irregular proceedings.
     

• A five-minute dismissal with no reasons evidences no such sensitivity and no adjustment of procedure to account for that vulnerability.

7.  Karasiewicz v. Collins, 2021 ONSC 4953 & Labatt Brewing Co. v. NHL, 2011 ONCA 511 

Courts must decide motions based on grounds advanced by the parties, not new bases introduced by the court (Karasiewicz, para. 114; Labatt, para. 15).  All the panel had to do was recognize the palpable and overriding error at paragraph (1) of the lower court reasons.  Slam-dunk.  It's "unanimous finding of no merit" was like reading an astronomy brief from the Flat Earth Society.  

Summary
 

Drawing on Sheppard, Vavilov, R.D.S., Wolkins, Sherman Estate, Vancouver Sun, and Baker:
 

• Reasons are essential to transparency and review, especially after a series of earlier irregularities;

• Cumulative fairness must be assessed, not brushed aside;

• Sealing cannot be allowed to erase both the record and the reasoning;

• Vulnerability demands heightened procedural care.
   

Instead, the NSCA dismissed the appeal in minutes, provided no reasons, and maintained full sealing.  In the chronology, this marks the point at which the provincial appellate process effectively closed its doors without demonstrating that the governing legal frameworks had ever been applied.

 

December 21, 2023 – SCC Leave Dismissed Without Reasons (Russia/Ukraine War, Day 666)

On December 21, 2023, leave to appeal at the Supreme Court of Canada was denied without reasons.

 

• The subject’s leave and certiorari materials had been before the Court for several months;

• Registry inaction had delayed hearings, against rule 54(4), for over five months;

• The leave refusal closely followed the NSCA’s sealed dismissal on December 4, 2023, creating the appearance of a sequential shutdown.

• The Russia/Ukraine 666 milestone is referenced by way of the AI-assisted harassment cohort (see Guide page or the Q/A page).
   

 

The result was that the cumulative pattern of sealing, costs, discovery obstruction, surveillance-linked harms, and procedural foreclosure never received a publicly reasoned response at Canada's highest court.
 

Applicable Legal Framework
 

1. R. v. C.P., 2021 SCC 19 
 

In R. v. C.P., the Supreme Court addressed how its leave to appeal function interacts with allegations of miscarriage of justice.  At paragraph 137, former Deputy AG and Minister of Justice Iacobucci J. stated:
 

 

“There is no basis to believe that a serious argument pointing to a miscarriage of justice would not meet the public interest standard for leave to appeal to the Court […] The Supreme Court would and does exercise its leave requirement in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice.”
 

Two key propositions flow from this:
 

• Serious miscarriage-of-justice arguments inherently satisfy the “public importance” / public interest dimension of leave.  The Court expressly rejects the notion that a credible miscarriage-of-justice claim might somehow fall outside the public interest standard.  If the argument is serious and non-frivolous, it meets that standard.
   

• The leave filter itself is constrained by the principles of fundamental justice.  The Court affirms that it must exercise its gatekeeping function in accordance with those principles.  In other words, leave discretion is not a free political or docket-management choice divorced from fairness; it is a Charter-inflected function that must be compatible with fundamental justice where serious injustice is credibly alleged.
   

Applied to December 21, 2023:
 

• The subject’s leave and certiorari materials did not raise a minor technical complaint; they advanced a systemic miscarriage-of-justice narrative, including:
   

  • Massive, facially irrational costs (~$400,000 for ~14.5 hours of hearing time);

  • Discovery obstruction and neutralization of CRA-based truth-seeking;

  • Sealing and re-sealing practices that prevented public and appellate scrutiny;

  • Surveillance-linked harms and psychiatric/emergency interventions;

  • Compounded access-to-justice barriers (security for costs, vexatiousness, procedural foreclosure).
     

• Under C.P., a serious, evidence-backed claim of miscarriage of justice of this type:
   

  • Should, in principle, satisfy the public interest standard for leave; and

  • Triggers a duty on the Court to exercise its leave discretion in a manner consistent with fundamental justice, not merely administrative convenience.
     

• The combination of:
   

  • A detailed record alleging systemic, cross-jurisdictional miscarriage,

  • Multi-month registry delay that allowed some relief to be overtaken by events, and

  • A no-reasons leave refusal,
     

creates a tension with the assurance in C.P. that credible miscarriage-of-justice arguments will be treated as inherently meeting the public-interest threshold for leave.

 

2. Rules of the Supreme Court of Canada, Rule 54
 

Rule 54 and related provisions set out timelines for:
 

• Filing leave materials;

• Serving and filing responses;

• Processing motions and applications.
   

While the Court retains broad discretion in managing its docket, chronic delay or administrative inaction that causes motions to lapse or become practically moot raises procedural fairness concerns, particularly for self-represented litigants.
 

Applied:
 

• The subject experienced multi-month delay during which motions were not adjudicated.

• By the time of the December 21 refusal, some relief sought was no longer practically available, not because it was denied on the merits but because it had been overtaken by events.

• This kind of delay is structurally similar to the problems the Court has identified in other contexts where procedural inaction causes substantive prejudice.

\

2. R. v. Jordan, 2016 SCC 27 (by analogy)
 

Jordan concerns criminal delay, but its core insight is that systemic delay can translate into individual injustice when it impairs meaningful participation or the ability to obtain a fair determination.
 

Applied:
 

• The subject’s motions—raising systemic access-to-justice and fairness concerns—became functionally unaddressed as time passed.

• Although Jordan is not directly applicable, its logic highlights how delayed or absent processing of applications can produce substantive unfairness, especially where the surrounding procedural landscape is already compromised.
   

3. R. v. Hinse, [1995] 4 S.C.R. 597
 

As noted above, Hinse stands for the proposition that extraordinary remedies and reconsideration are appropriate where genuine, serious questions of justice remain unanswered.
 

Applied:
 

• The leave and certiorari materials clearly raised such questions.

• The absence of reasons means it is impossible to know whether those questions were ever substantively confronted or whether the denial reflected docket pressures, procedural posture, or any other factor.

 

4. Vavilov’s Rule-of-Law Rationale 
 

The Supreme Court is not legally required to give reasons for routine leave refusals.  However, Vavilov’s broader rule-of-law rationale—that justification and transparency are key to maintaining public confidence—has particular resonance where:
 

• A record alleges systemic abuse of process, sealing abuses, and access-to-justice failures; and

• All lower-court processes have already operated under conditions of secrecy.
   

Applied:
 

• While the Court is entitled to deny leave without reasons, the combination of:

  • a sealed provincial appellate record,

  • documented systemic concerns, and

  • a no-reasons leave refusal
     

• leaves the public with no way to assess how, if at all, these systemic concerns were evaluated.

 

5. Trial Lawyers Association of British Columbia v. British Columbia (AG), 2014 SCC 59
 

Trial Lawyers recognizes access to justice as a constitutional imperative bound up with the core jurisdiction of s. 96 courts (para. 39).
 

Applied:
 

• The subject faced escalating barriers: sealing, costs, security orders, a vexatious declaration, and brief non-reasoned dismissals.

• The leave refusal, following that cascade, completed a closed loop: no forum provided a publicly reasoned answer on the systemic access-to-justice issues themselves.

• Taken together, that sequence is difficult to square with the access-to-justice values articulated in Trial Lawyers.
   

6. R. v. Bain, [1992] 1 S.C.R. 91
 

Bain underscores that the justice system must avoid even the appearance that outcomes are pre-determined or coordinated in a way that undermines independence and fairness.
 

Applied:
 

• The temporal sequence—NSCA’s brief, sealed dismissal on December 4 followed by SCC leave denial on December 21—creates at least the perception that:

  • Once the provincial appeal was summarily disposed of, national-level scrutiny became functionally unlikely;

  • The Supreme Court’s leave decision may have been influenced by the absence of a visible provincial record or reasons;

  • The combined effect was a joint foreclosure rather than independent review.
     

While there is no direct evidence of coordination, the appearance of a “sequential shutdown” raises the kind of perception problem Bain warns against.

 

Summary
 

Within the constraints of the Supreme Court’s leave jurisdiction, the December 21, 2023 refusal is formally unremarkable: leave is often denied without reasons.  What makes it a critical milestone in this chronology is the context:
 

• Lower courts had relied on sealing, extraordinary costs, security orders, and brief non-reasoned dismissals;

• The certiorari and leave materials raised serious, system-level questions of justice;

• Registry delay had aligned with the information asymmetry and foreclosure mechanism in the NS courts;

• Leave was then refused without a public explanation, on a day the AI-assisted cohort was disproportionately excited about.
   

In aggregate in viewing the foregoing case law, the December 21 event completes a cross-jurisdictional arc:
 

A pattern of institutional foreclosure originating in BC was ultimately ratified, without written reasons, at the national level, leaving unresolved whether the cumulative sequence of sealing, costs, discovery obstruction, and technologically mediated interference is compatible with Canada’s constitutional commitments to openness, fairness, and access to justice.
 

January 9, 2024 – SCC Motion for Reconsideration Filed
 

The subject filed a Motion for Reconsideration at the Supreme Court of Canada, re-engaging the entire leave record and re-opening the question whether Nova Scotia courts could lawfully enforce British Columbia costs judgments under Nova Scotia’s Enforcement of Canadian Judgments and Decrees Act, S.N.S. 2001, c. 30 (the ECJDA).
 

The reconsideration motion sought to correct systemic irregularities that meet the "exceedingly rare" threshold, including:
 

• extreme billing (an ~89× time-multiplier);

• discovery obstruction (the April 1, 2022 Cameron order overridden in practice);

• blanket and pre-service sealing practices that prevented scrutiny of the underlying record;

• cross-jurisdictional procedural foreclosure (BC → NS → SCC); 

• the unlawful use of comity and conclusory reasons; and

• Charter-level harms involving surveillance, cognitive liberty, and privacy (a Canada first)
   

Applicable Legal Framework
 

1. R. v. Hinse, [1995] 4 S.C.R. 597 – Reconsideration Where a “Genuine, Serious Question” Persists Supreme Court of Canada Decisions
 

In Hinse, the Court recognized that reconsideration is appropriate where a panel member identifies a genuine and serious question about justice or the integrity of the result.
 

The subject’s motion presented multiple such questions, including whether:
 

• approximately $400,000 in costs for nine very short hearings reflected a fraudulent multiplier scheme;

• the April 1, 2022 Cameron discovery order was lawfully bypassed;

• indefinite sealing regimes in BC and NS had been used to conceal probative evidence; and

• cross-jurisdictional procedural collapses created a justice-system integrity problem, rather than isolated error.
   

Each issue, standing alone, engages the Hinse threshold; together, they are the paradigm of a “genuine, serious question” warranting reconsideration.

 

2. Beals v. Saldanha, 2003 SCC 72, [2003] 3 S.C.R. 416 
 

Beals confirms that an enforcing Canadian court must refuse to enforce another jurisdiction’s judgment where:
 

1. the judgment was procured by fraud;

2. natural justice was denied; or

3. enforcement would offend Canadian public policy.
    

The reconsideration motion directly re-engaged these Beals defences in the ECJDA context. If the underlying BC costs awards were tainted by:
 

• fraudulent billing (e.g., ~737.7 hours billed for ~14.5 hours of court time);

• discovery suppression that blocked material shareholder evidence from ever being led;

• sealing that prevented adversarial challenge and public scrutiny; and

• in-absentia orders and vexatious-litigant declarations that cut off access;
   

then enforcement in Nova Scotia becomes constitutionally and doctrinally impermissible. Under Beals, the enforcing court (and, on reconsideration, the SCC) is required to scrutinize fraud indicators and natural-justice defects before allowing enforcement.

 

3. Supreme Court Act, R.S.C. 1985, c. S-26, s. 40; Rules of the Supreme Court of Canada, r. 25 
 

Section 40 and Rule 25 create a narrow, discretionary reconsideration mechanism.  The jurisprudence and SCC practice recognize several triggers:
 

• new evidence or new clarity (e.g., detailed billing audits, cost comparators, and hours-to-time ratios);

• procedural irregularities (e.g., registry delays or missteps causing motions to lapse);

• issues of public importance (e.g., sealing practices, access-to-justice barriers, systemic gatekeeping); and

• misapprehension or oversight of critical evidence.
   

The subject’s record engaged each of these triggers.  Reconsideration was the only available vehicle once ordinary routes (appeal, motion to vary, rehearing) had been foreclosed by sealing, summary dismissals, and registry inaction.

 

4. Sherman Estate v. Donovan, 2021 SCC 25, [2021] 2 S.C.R. 133
 

In Sherman Estate, the Court held that sealing orders are constitutionally permissible only where:
 

1. a serious risk to an important interest is established;

2. the order is necessary because reasonably available alternatives will not prevent the risk; and

3. the order is as limited as possible (redactions, category-specific tailoring).
    

The reconsideration motion challenged the ongoing blanket sealing regimes in BC and NS, arguing that they:
 

• prevented verification of the billing scandal;

• concealed shareholder-record anomalies (CSR freeze, derecognition policy, 2020 transfer documents);

• buried affidavit contradictions; and

• blocked public understanding of the procedural chronology.
   

Reconsideration was thus necessary to restore Sherman Estate compliance and to permit limited unsealing for verification before enforcing the BC costs awards under the ECJDA.

 

5. R. v. Babos, 2014 SCC 16, [2014] 1 S.C.R. 309 
 

Babos identifies three categories of abuse of process, all engaged here:
 

1. Prejudice to trial/hearing fairness
    

   • discovery blocked (Cameron order shelved in practice);

   • sealing blocking public oversight;

   • misapplication of procedural rules.
      

2. State conduct undermining justice-system integrity
    

   • costs awards used punitively;

   • vexatious-litigant tools deployed to bar access;

   • forum steering / adjudicator selection concerns.
      

3. Cumulative pattern requiring exceptional relief
    

The reconsideration motion framed the matter as a cross-jurisdictional collapse in fair process—precisely the sort of systemic integrity problem Babos contemplates when discussing stays or other extraordinary remedies.

 

6. Trial Lawyers Association of British Columbia v. British Columbia (Attorney General), 2014 SCC 59, [2014] 3 S.C.R. 31 
 

Trial Lawyers holds that laws and practices that render meaningful access to the courts “illusory” violate the Constitution’s rule-of-law commitments.  The reconsideration record showed:
 

• BC courts had barred access through sealing, summary dismissal, and a vexatious-litigant order;

• the NSCA imposed a security-for-costs regime at ~10× the Power v. Power benchmark, then disposed of the appeal in minutes without reasons;

• SCC motions were allowed to lapse through registry inaction; and

• leave was dismissed without reasons.
   

The motion argued that only the SCC, via reconsideration, could now restore functional access to justice in line with Trial Lawyers.

 

7. Newfoundland and Labrador Nurses’ Union v. Newfoundland and Labrador (Treasury Board), 2011 SCC 62, [2011] 3 S.C.R. 708 
 

Newfoundland Nurses stands for the proposition that, under reasonableness review, reasons must be read in light of the record—but it presupposes that reasons exist at all.
 

Here, both the NSCA and SCC leave decisions were rendered without reasons. In the absence of reasons:
 

• legality cannot be coherently assessed;

• errors cannot be identified or corrected; and

• compliance with natural justice cannot be confirmed.
   

The reconsideration motion contended that, without reasons, the Newfoundland Nurses deferential posture is inapplicable, and reconsideration was necessary to obtain a legally reviewable explanation.

 

8. Mission Institution v. Khela, 2014 SCC 24, [2014] 1 S.C.R. 502
 

In Khela, the Court held that reviewing courts must intervene where the underlying record is incomplete, inaccurate, or misleading.
 

Here:
 

• BC records were sealed and incomplete;

• NS records contained materially inconsistent descriptions of the same events;

• SCC registry inaction prevented correction or supplementation; and

• affidavits described shareholder evidence, harassment, and billing practices that were never adjudicated on their merits.
   

This constellation of defects met the Khela threshold for extraordinary corrective intervention.

 

Summary
 

Under Hinse, Beals, Sherman Estate, Babos, Trial Lawyers, Newfoundland Nurses, and Khela, the January 9, 2024 reconsideration motion:
 

• raised issues of compelling public importance;

• exposed facially-evident fraud and natural-justice failures;

• challenged unconstitutional or misapplied sealing regimes;

• documented systemic foreclosure of appellate access; and

• identified a cross-jurisdictional breakdown in fair process.

• identified related state-adjacent criminal interference

• highlighted a UN-recognized emerging risk flag
   

It was not a routine reconsideration request.  It was a structural challenge to a multi-level collapse of adjudicative safeguards.  On any orthodox application of these authorities, reconsideration warranted at least:
 

• calling for submissions from respondents;

• a partial unsealing order;

• consideration of appointing an amicus or special master; or

• referral to a full panel for determination.
   

July 5, 2024 – SCC Reconsideration Refused Entry
 

On July 5, 2024, the Registrar refused to submit the reconsideration motion to a panel, stating that there were “no exceedingly rare circumstances,” and thereby blocked reconsideration at the threshold stage.
 

Applicable Legal Framework
 

1. R. v. Hinse, [1995] 4 S.C.R. 597 
 

The Hinse framework focuses on whether a genuine, serious question remains—not on whether the case is “exceedingly rare.”  The Registrar’s language appears to import a more restrictive standard than that articulated in Hinse.
 

Given the record—fraud-level billing multipliers, discovery denial, comprehensive sealing, Charter-level harms—each issue independently met the Hinse threshold.  Applying a “no exceedingly rare circumstances” test arguably misconstrued the governing reconsideration standard.

 

2. Sherman Estate v. Donovan, 2021 SCC 25
 

Sherman Estate and related openness jurisprudence require that the continued necessity of sealing orders be revisited over time. Reconsideration was a logical vehicle to revisit sealing, especially where commercial or privacy rationales from a 2021 settlement landscape had little bearing on a 2024 enforcement scenario.
 

Refusing even to place the reconsideration motion before a panel, without addressing whether the sealing remained necessary or proportionate, thwarted Sherman Estate’s periodic-review requirement.

 

3. Canadian Broadcasting Corp. v. Named Person, 2024 SCC 21 
 

In Canadian Broadcasting Corp. v. Named Person, 2024 SCC 21, the Court reaffirmed that secret trials and comprehensive secrecy are “intolerable” in Canada, and that courts must be creative and flexible in preserving openness while protecting legitimate confidentiality interests.

The reconsideration motion raised exactly this concern: overlapping, cross-jurisdictional sealing that had effectively created a shadow process around the subject’s matter.  The Registrar’s refusal, shortly after CBC v. Named Person, suggests that:
 

• the new precedent was not appreciated; or

• it was deemed inapplicable without explanation; or

• the decision was made without meaningful engagement with the recent jurisprudence.
   

Each scenario is problematic under the open-court principle.

 

4. Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration) v. Vavilov, 2019 SCC 65, [2019] 4 S.C.R. 653 
 

Vavilov requires that even brief administrative decisions demonstrate engagement with the central issues and the evidentiary record.  A conclusory statement that there were “no exceedingly rare circumstances,” with no discussion of:
 

• the billing records and cost comparators;

• the shareholder and CSR evidence;

• the sealing and procedural chronology;
   

fails to meet Vavilov’s requirement that reasons show the decision maker grappled with the core issues.

 

5. Trial Lawyers & Rule 25
 

Rule 25 formally creates a reconsideration mechanism.  Trial Lawyers requires that such mechanisms be functionally available, not illusory.  If, in practice, reconsideration is almost never permitted past the Registrar gate, the mechanism may exist on paper but not in reality.
 

The refusal to even place this record—replete with public-importance issues—before a panel reinforces the appearance that reconsideration is effectively unavailable, undermining the rule-of-law commitments emphasized in Trial Lawyers.

 

March 21, 2024 – Justice Ann E. Smith Dismisses Stay of Enforcement 
 

On March 21, 2024, Justice Ann E. Smith dismissed the subject’s application to stay enforcement of approximately $300,000 in BC costs awards arising from eight hearings under 30 minutes (part of the ~89× billing pattern); a portion of the billing scandal.  The decision:
 

• ignored all shareholder evidence (CSR freeze, derecognition policy, 2020 transfer documents);

• ignored all billing-fraud evidence;

• ignored BC procedural irregularities (discovery suppression, sealing, vexatious declaration);

• barred the subject from quoting his own sworn affidavit (“you can't refer to it because it’s sealed”);

• opened the enforcement track despite the unresolved ECJDA / Beals issues; 

• deferred to BC decisions and the 2023 NS decisions in conclusory reasons (contrary to Vavilov); 

• imposed a further $1,000 in costs.
   

The result bears the appearance of institutional capture: a receiving court enforcing another province’s judgment without examining fraud, natural-justice defects, or proportionality, contrary to binding Supreme Court jurisprudence.  Conveyer-belt enforcement.
 

Applicable Legal Framework
 

1. Beals v. Saldanha, 2003 SCC 72
 

Beals holds that enforcement of an external judgment must be refused if:
 

1. fraud tainted the process;

2. natural justice was violated; or

3. enforcement would offend public policy.
    

The stay motion placed all three directly in issue:
 

• Fraud:
   

  • ~737.7 billable hours vs. ~14.5 hearing hours (an 89× multiplier);

  • overstaffing, duplication, and block-billing anomalies;

  • costs approaching ~$400,000 for short, procedural attendances attended by articling students.
     

• Natural Justice:
   

  • Cameron discovery order overridden;

  • record sealed in BC and NS;

  • procedural manipulation and foreclosure;

  • misused comity and conclusory deferral to past judgments;

  • summary dismissal and vexatious declaration foreclosing access;

  • evidence blocked from ever being led.

  • related criminal interference
     

• Public Policy:
   

  • costs weaponized to financially disable shareholder oversight;

  • a punitive regime applied to a self-represented shareholder raising records-integrity concerns.
     

Justice Smith did not meaningfully analyze any of these mandatory Beals defences, rendering the decision irreconcilable with Beals’ basic framework.

 

2. Enforcement of Canadian Judgments and Decrees Act, S.N.S. 2001, c. 30 (ECJDA) 
 

The ECJDA presumes enforceability of Canadian judgments, but it does not authorize enforcement of judgments that fail core Canadian procedural-justice standards.  Enforcement must be read harmoniously with Beals: fraud, natural-justice failures, or public-policy violations preclude registration and enforcement.
 

Justice Smith opened the enforcement track without determining whether the BC proceedings:
 

• complied with minimum standards of procedural fairness;

• had been structurally affected by sealing; or

• were infected by fraud-level billing practices.
   

That approach undermines the ECJDA’s integrity and its implicit reliance on Beals.

 

3. R. v. Babos, 2014 SCC 16 
 

Enforcing $300,000 in costs that were:
 

• generated through grossly inflated billing;

• extracted from sealed proceedings; and

• used to crush a litigant raising credible concerns about record integrity
   

falls squarely within Babos’ concern for systemic confidence.  The decision engages all three abuse categories: unfairness, integrity threat, and cumulative systemic failure.

 

4. Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration) v. Vavilov, 2019 SCC 65, [2019] 4 S.C.R. 653
 

Under Vavilov, a decision is unreasonable where it fails to grapple with central, probative evidence.  Justice Smith’s reasons did not address:
 

• the April 2020 CSR freeze;

• the 2020 share-transfer paperwork;

• the derecognition policy;

• the billing records showing 89× time multipliers;

• the sealing and discovery chronology in BC; or

• Nova Scotia’s own cost benchmarks (~$500 per short motion / chambers appearance).
   

This omission is a textbook violation of Vavilov’s requirement to engage with key evidence.

 

5. R. v. Bain, [1992] 1 S.C.R. 91 
 

Bain emphasizes that justice must both be done and be seen to be done.  Enforcing a massive costs award while refusing to hear the subject’s own affidavit (because it is “sealed”), and while ignoring the fraud and procedural-fairness record, creates a reasonable apprehension of institutional bias in favor of the enforcing jurisdiction.

 

6. Pintea v. Johns, 2017 SCC 23, [2017] 1 S.C.R. 470
 

Pintea requires courts to ensure fair process for SRLs, adapt procedures as needed, and avoid technical traps that prevent substantive justice.

Here:
 

• the subject was prohibited from quoting his own evidence;

• complex, probative materials were not engaged; and

• enforcement was granted without meaningful participation.
   

This is the inverse of what Pintea demands.

 

7. F.H. v. McDougall, 2008 SCC 53, [2008] 3 S.C.R. 41 
 

F.H. v. McDougall confirms that while there is a single civil standard (balance of probabilities), the evidence must be “sufficiently clear, convincing and cogent” to meet it.  The subject tendered:
 

• statutory shareholder records;

• CPA-quality financial materials;

• detailed billing records and clerks’ logs;

• procedural orders; and

• cost benchmarks.
   

Justice Smith did not explain why this evidence failed to meet the McDougall standard.

 

8. Boucher v. Public Accountants Council for the Province of Ontario, 2004 CanLII 14579 (ON CA), 71 O.R. (3d) 291

Boucher stresses that costs must be proportionate to complexity, time, and stakes.  A $300,000 costs regime for short procedural hearings—particularly where duplication and overstaffing are proven—is facially disproportionate.  No proportionality analysis was undertaken.

 

9. Little Sisters Book and Art Emporium v. Canada (Commissioner of Customs and Revenue), 2007 SCC 2, [2007] 1 S.C.R. 38
 

Little Sisters underscores that costs must not be used in ways that effectively deny access to justice, especially in rights-laden or public-interest contexts.  Enforcing $300,000 in costs against an SRL facing financial collapse, harassment, and multi-jurisdictional sealing is a paradigmatic Little Sisters access-barrier scenario.

 

Summary
 

Justice Smith’s ruling handed the respondents a $1,000 bonus, and disregarded binding safeguards governing the enforcement of out-of-province judgments:
 

• Beals defences were not addressed;

• Babos integrity concerns were manifest;

• Vavilov’s evidentiary-engagement requirement was breached;

• Pintea’s SRL protections were inverted;

• Bain’s appearance-of-justice standard was compromised;

• McDougall’s evidentiary standard and Boucher’s proportionality guidance were ignored; and

• the ECJDA’s implied reliance on valid, procedurally intact judgments was undermined.
   

The result is not a mere error but an appearance of institutional alignment: a receiving court enforcing structurally defective judgments from a sealed, procedurally compromised foreign proceeding without performing the mandatory inquiries required by Canadian law.