Le fait d’accorder une trop grande importance à des généralisations risque de perpétuer des mythes et stéréotypes préjudiciables au sujet des personnes ayant des déficiences, situation qui est peu propice au processus de recherche de la vérité et qui crée des obstacles additionnels pour les gens qui demandent accès à la justice.
Nous tenons simplement à souligner que, lorsque les tribunaux sont appelés à apprécier la crédibilité et la fiabilité du témoignage d’une personne ayant une déficience intellectuelle ou développementale, ils doivent hésiter à privilégier un témoignage d’expert attribuant des caractéristiques générales à cette personne, plutôt qu’à s’attacher à sa véracité et à ses capacités réelles démontrées par son aptitude à percevoir les événements en litige, à s’en rappeler et à les relater, à la lumière de l’ensemble de la preuve. Le fait d’accorder une trop grande importance à des généralisations risque de perpétuer des mythes et stéréotypes préjudiciables au sujet des personnes ayant des déficiences, situation qui est peu propice au processus de recherche de la vérité et qui crée des obstacles additionnels pour les gens qui demandent accès à la justice.
Credibility deals with a witness’s veracity or truthfulness, while reliability addresses the accuracy of a witness’s testimony. Accuracy engages consideration of a witness’s ability to accurately observe, recall, and recount
[117] Although they share certain attributes, credibility and reliability are different concepts. Credibility deals with a witness’s veracity or truthfulness, while reliability addresses the accuracy of a witness’s testimony. Accuracy engages consideration of a witness’s ability to accurately observe, recall, and recount: R. v. H.C., 2009 ONCA 56, 241 C.C.C. (3d) 45, at para. 41.
[118] Like credibility, reliability is a factual determination. It is within the province of the trial judge. It is the trial judge who has the opportunity to hear and observe all of the witnesses. This reality anchors the principle that when reviewing reasons for sufficiency, an appellate court should start from a stance of deference towards a trial judge’s perception of the facts:
The trial judge should not be found to have erred in law for failing to describe every consideration leading to a finding of credibility, or to the conclusion of guilt or innocence. Nor should error of law be found because the trial judge has failed to reconcile every frailty in the evidence or allude to every relevant principle of law.: R.E.M. at para. 56.
[119] In assessing the reliability of a witness’ testimony, each case must be considered on its own facts: R. v. A.(S.) (1992), 1992 CanLII 7517 (ON CA), 11 O.R. (3d) 16 (C.A.), at p. 23. In that case, without requiring that each factor be addressed, this court listed a number of non-exhaustive factors that may be considered in appraising the reliability of a child complainant’s statement in a sexual assault case. This included medical evidence, the age and immaturity of the child, the language used in the statement, the relative spontaneity of the statement, the passage of time between the statement and the alleged assaults, and the absence of any details in the statement referable to the time, place, or circumstances in which the assault occurred: at pp. 22-23. Passage of time is another factor that may be relevant to the assessment of reliability: R. v. Morrissey (1995), 1995 CanLII 3498 (ON CA), 22 O.R. (3d) 514 (C.A.) at p. 526.
Voir aussi R. c. Kishayinew, 2020 CSC 34
Sur ce point, nous souscrivons aux motifs exposés par le juge Tholl, en dissidence, aux par. 52 à 78 de sa décision.
A trial judge’s assessment of reliability cannot be interfered with on appeal unless it cannot be supported on any reasonable view of the evidence. A finding of reliability by a trial judge, like a finding of credibility, is a finding of fact that attracts significant deference by a reviewing court
[56] A complete failure to conduct a reliability analysis would be an error of law under s. 686(1)(a)(ii) and would be subject to review on a correctness standard. This would be no different than a complete failure to conduct a credibility analysis (R v Patrick, 2017 SKCA 95 at paras 51 to 72 [Patrick], R v Morrissey (1995), 1995 CanLII 3498 (ON CA), 97 CCC (3d) 193 (WL) (Ont CA) at paras 33 to 35 [Morrissey]).
[57] When an appellant asserts a proper reliability analysis was not done, relying on s. 686(1)(a)(i), the Court must determine whether this represents a challenge that the verdict is unreasonable or a challenge that the verdict is unsupported by the evidence because the two branches of s. 686(1)(a)(i) are disjunctive (R v Beaudry, 2007 SCC 5 at paras 89 to 98, [2007] 1 SCR 190, R v Sinclair, 2011 SCC 40, [2011] 3 SCR 3). An examination of the jurisprudence demonstrates this type of challenge represents an assertion that the verdict is unreasonable (R v Burke, 1996 CanLII 229 (SCC), [1996] 1 SCR 474 at paras 2 to 7 and 46 [Burke], Patrick at paras 24 and 67, R v Schaff, 2017 SKCA 103 at paras 21 and 44 [Schaff], R v Perrone, 2014 MBCA 74 at para 4, 313 CCC (3d) 399 [Perrone] (aff’d 2015 SCC 8, [2015] 1 SCR 473), and R v Hussain, 2018 ONCA 147 at paras 4 to 8, 140 OR (3d) 593). A trial judge’s assessment of reliability cannot be interfered with on appeal unless it cannot be supported on any reasonable view of the evidence: Patrick at para 24, R v Houle, 2019 MBCA 17 at para 10. A finding of reliability by a trial judge, like a finding of credibility, is a finding of fact that attracts significant deference by a reviewing court: Patrick at para 57, Schaff at para 44, and R v Wolff, 2019 SKCA 103 at para 40 [Wolff].
[58] When a verdict is challenged on the basis of unreasonableness, an appellate court may, to a limited extent, examine, consider and reweigh the evidence but cannot substitute its own view of the evidence for that of the trial judge: R v Yebes, 1987 CanLII 17 (SCC), [1987] 2 SCR 168 [Yebes]; R v Biniaris, 2000 SCC 15, [2000] 1 SCR 381 [Biniaris]; and R v Britz, 2016 SKCA 2, 331 CCC (3d) 338.
[59] In analyzing this ground of appeal, it is important to understand the distinction between credibility and reliability because the assessment of credibility is a separate consideration from the assessment of reliability. It is the difference between the witness’s willingness to testify truthfully (credibility) and the accuracy of the witness’s testimony (reliability). Finding a witness to be credible does not equate to finding a witness’s testimony to be reliable. While a non-credible witness’s testimony will not be reliable, a credible witness’s testimony is not necessarily reliable: see Morrissey, H.C., Patrick, Schaff, Wolff, and R v Pelletier, 2019 SKCA 113 at paras 138–139.
[60] There are many reasons why witnesses – who are forthright, acting in good faith and honestly doing their best to tell the truth during testimony – may not be reliable. Some of those reasons include (but are not limited to) the following:
(a) inability to properly observe the events in the first instance;
(b) confusion with a different event;
(c) intoxication;
(d) passage of time;
(e) nervousness during testimony; or
(f) other factors affecting a witness’s ability to observe, remember and recount the events.
[61] The assessment of reliability is often intertwined with the assessment of credibility, and some of the same factors that affect credibility are relevant to reliability; but reliability is a separate issue. The failure of a trial judge to consider the reliability of crucial evidence is grounds for appellate intervention: Burke at paras 45–46; R v J.S., 2011 ONCA 304 at paras 9–12; and Patrick at para 58.
…
[64] In my view, trial judges do not have to explicitly address the issue of reliability, if their reasons are sufficient for an appellate court to determine they turned their mind to the issue of reliability and evaluated the relevant reliability factors (Perrone and Patrick).
