In R. v. G.B. (Ont CA, 2023) the Court of Appeal considered a 'stay' as a remedy for alleged disclosure breaches:
[20] The applicant’s second ground of appeal is that the trial judge erred in dismissing his request for a stay of the charges against him based on what he argued were disclosure failures of the Crown.
[21] The trial judge found that the Crown’s disclosure had not in every respect been timely and complete − rather, he termed it “sub-optimal”. But he found that prosecutorial misconduct had not been made out, and that the applicant had not been deprived of a fair trial or opportunity to make full answer and defence, because, for example, the late disclosure was still in time for use in cross-examination or was of little probative value.
[22] A stay is a remedy of last resort, to be granted only in the “clearest of cases” when no other remedy can address the harm: R. v. Babos, 2014 SCC 16, [2014] 1 S.C.R. 309, at paras. 30-31 and 36-40. The trial judge’s determination that no such harm was present here and thus to refuse a stay is entitled to deference on appeal: R. v. Graham, 2020 ONCA 692, at para. 18.
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