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Criminal - NCR - Practice. Cole (Re)
In Cole (Re) (Ont CA, 2025) the Ontario Court of Appeal allowed an appeal, this brought against "the disposition of the Ontario Review Board (the “Board”) from his most recent annual review hearing" which "ordered that the appellant be detained at the Ontario Shores Centre for Mental Health Sciences (the “Hospital”) within a Secure Forensic Unit in the Forensic Program".
Here the court considers whether the ORB can reject a joint submission by the parties:[35] On appeal, the appellant and the Hospital submit that the Board erred in departing from what was in essence a joint submission and that the electronics supervision clause was not reasonable. They contend that the electronics supervision clause is not necessary to protect the victim of the index offence or the public. The appellant had made no attempt to contact the victim in the past 6.5 years, even during a period of several months when the provision had inadvertently not been enforced and the appellant had unsupervised access to electronics. They point to Dr. Chuong’s evidence that even with the removal of clause 4(d), the Hospital would continue to supervise the appellant’s use of electronic devices, gradually reducing the supervision, and could start direct supervision again if they felt it was necessary to manage the risk.
[36] The Attorney General contends that the Board was entitled to reject the joint submission and that the decision to retain the electronics supervision clause was reasonable and supported by the evidence.
[37] I agree. As Laskin J.A. observed in Osawe (Re), 2015 ONCA 280, 125 O.R. (3d) 428, at para. 33, “[t]he board has the undoubted authority, indeed the duty, to reject a joint submission if it is of the view that the joint submission does not meet the requirements of s. 672.54 of the Criminal Code.” ....
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