A win for Team CCFR in federal court

May 31, 2021

A win for Team CCFR in federal court

Re CCFR v Canada - Rule 317 Order

The CCFR received a favorable decision from Associate Chief Justice Gagné on the Rule 317/Cabinet Privilege issue.

Justice Gagné agreed with our argument that the AGC had not properly complied with the Canada Evidence Act and therefore could not benefit from its blanket protection. Instead, the common law doctrine of Cabinet Privilege applies. She therefore ordered that the AGC file the documents with the Court under seal.

Gagné ACJ will review the documents to determine: (1) if cabinet privilege applies; and if so (2) whether the public interest in disclosure outweighs the importance of upholding the documents’ confidentiality.

We’ll see what records ultimately end up in our hands after the Court’s review, but this is a good result in the meantime.

As a reminder, the CCFR provided extensive submissions, and the Applicants in files T-905-20 [Eichenberg], T-569-20 [Parker], and T-677-20 [Doherty] adopted our arguments. The Order sets out what we asked for in Annex "A" (and it's a very extensive list); the other applicants who did not adopt our arguments asked for a different set of documents, set out at the end of Annex "A".

You will also see the judgement awards us our costs for this portion.