In a 5-4 ruling, the SCC agreed that Braydon Wolfe’s 10-year driving ban wasn’t an available sentencing option under the Criminal Code.
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The Supreme Court of Canada has set aside Braydon Wolfe’s 10-year driving ban after the Saskatchewan man caused a deadly highway crash near Langham seven years ago.
In a decision released Friday, five of the nine SCC judges agreed that the driving prohibition imposed as part of Wolfe’s six-year sentence wasn’t an available sentencing option for people found guilty of criminal negligence offences.
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The majority decision means Wolfe can operate a motor vehicle after he is released from prison.
In 2020, he was convicted of two counts of criminal negligence causing death and one count of criminal negligence causing bodily harm.
During his judge-alone trial at Saskatoon Court of King’s Bench, court heard Wolfe was driving up to 106 km/hr on the wrong side of Highway 16 — a divided highway — when he crashed head-on into a car carrying Mohammad Kazem, his wife Sangin Niazi and their 24-year-old daughter, Zohal Niazi.
Zohal and Kazem were killed. Sangin survived.
Wolfe didn’t testify. His lawyer told court his client didn’t know how he got on the wrong side of the highway. Wolfe was seriously injured in the crash.
Driving offences under the Criminal Code of Canada were overhauled when Bill C-46 was passed in 2018, and included the addition of a discretionary driving prohibition order.
Section 320.24(4) of the code states:
“If an offender is found guilty of an offence under section 320.13, subsection 320.14(2) or (3), 320.15(2) or (3) or under any of sections 320.16 to 320.18, the court that sentences the offender may, in addition to any other punishment that may be imposed for that offence, make an order prohibiting the offender from operating the type of conveyance in question during a period to be determined in accordance with subsection (5).”
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The “enumerated” or listed offences don’t include criminal negligence causing death, but do include dangerous driving causing death.
When Saskatchewan’s Court of Appeal dismissed Wolfe’s sentence appeal in 2022, the appeal judges interpreted the driving prohibition order to be lawful because dangerous driving is a lesser and included offence of criminal negligence.
In the Supreme Court’s 5-4 ruling, the majority of judges disagreed.
“(Wolfe) was not ‘found guilty’ of an enumerated offence within the meaning of that provision. Accordingly, discretionary driving prohibitions were not available as a sentencing option,” Justice Sheilah Martin ruled; Chief Justice Richard Wagner and Justices Andromache Karakatsanis, Malcolm Rowe and Michelle O’Bonsawin concurred.
In a dissenting opinion, Justice Mary Moreau wrote that she would have dismissed the appeal. Justices Suzanne Côté, Mahmud Jamal and Nicholas Kasirer agreed with her.
They concluded that the interpretation of the code gives sentencing judges authority to impose discretionary driving bans when someone is specifically found guilty of criminal negligence causing death while driving.
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“A conviction under ss. 220 or 221 (where that conviction arises from criminal conduct involving the operation of a conveyance) necessarily entails a finding of guilt for dangerous operation causing death or bodily harm by operation of s. 662(5), which provides the basis for the imposition of a driving prohibition order under s. 320.24(4),” the dissenting judges concluded.
“This interpretation is most consistent with a harmonious reading of the text of s. 320.24(4), its broader context, and the objects of the law within the legislative scheme as a whole, and avoids absurd consequences that are presumed not to have been intended by Parliament.”
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