Judgment of the Court
JUDSON J.:-The appellant, Robert John Corcoran, was charged by information dated August 10, 1966, that on or about the 11th day of February, A.D. 1966 at the City of Calgary, in the Province of Alberta, Robert John Corcoran, Advertising agent, of R.C.S.
The magistrate convicted the appellant.
At the beginning of this trial, counsel for the appellant moved to quash on the ground that the information was defective. The magistrate refused to grant this application and proceeded to hear the evidence, but before the magistrate went on with the trial, counsel for the Crown told counsel for the appellant which question and answer alleged to be false in the appellant's application for permanent admission to Canada was in issue in the case. In other words, he gave him oral particulars.
On appeal to a District Judge, the appellant's counsel again moved against the information. It is apparent from the record of the proceedings before the judge that it was made clear to him, as it had been to the magistrate, what question was involved in this information. No evidence was taken before the judge and after argument, he granted the application and quashed the conviction.
The Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of Alberta allowed the Crown's appeal and ordered that the judgment of the District Judge be set aside and that the judgment of the magistrate be reinstated.
Leave to appeal was granted by this Court on the following questions of law:
The question in the application for admission to Canada which gives rise to the difficulty in this case is the following:
The Crown's allegation was that the applicant had been convicted of a criminal offence in the United States which he failed to disclose. This was the oral information given by counsel for the Crown to the accused before the trial began both before the magistrate and at the trial de novo J before the District Judge.
Section 50(f) of the Immigration Act, R.S.C. 1952, c. 325, under which the accused was charged, reads as follows:
My opinion is that this information was not fatally defective. It charges an offence punishable upon summary conviction. Section 701(1) dealing with summary convictions makes applicable 492 and 493 of the Criminal Code. Section 492, subs. (3), provides:
The accused here knew that he was charged with making a false or misleading statement in his application for admission to Canada. I do not think that the charge as framed is so lacking in detail of the circumstances that it does not identify the transaction. There would have been no difficulty in stating in the information that what was held against the accused was that he falsely stated that he had not been convicted of a criminal offence. Failure to do this was not a fatal defect in the information.
The accused had a right to demand particulars and, in fact, oral particulars were given to him and, as the record of what happened before the magistrate indicates, whatever merits counsel for the accused may have attributed to his motion to quash, he appears to have been content to proceed with the trial with these oral particulars. The appeal cannot succeed on this ground.
However, and as conceded by the respondent, there was error in the order of the Court of Appeal in reinstating the judgment of the magistrate. I would allow the appeal,
Statutes and regulations cited
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Unresolved citations
- Section 50(f)
- Section 701(1)