According to the ARQ, the appellant (“Trimax”) had been claiming input tax refunds and credits for QST and GST on fictitious purchases, with the “suppliers” not making any remittances of the amounts received by them on account of QST or GST, and with an agreed portion of the payments made by Trimax on the invoices being paid back to it. Search warrants were granted to the ARQ, with the searches executed at the premises of Trimax, its accountants and its law firm. Before the Superior Court, Trimax alleged various irregularities and omissions in the information which had been laid before the authorizing judge. In confirming the finding of the Superior Court that these deficiencies were not sufficient to indicate that the search warrants on the premises of Trimax and its accountants were properly granted, Hilton JCA stated (at para. 35, TI translation):
[T]he role of the reviewing judge is not to examine the validity of the claims as to the essential elements of the offence alleged in the information, but merely to verify if there are elements of evidence to which the authorizing judge could reasonably give credence in granting the application.
Before voiding the search warrant for the law firm premises and ordering the related documents to be returned, Hilton JCA stated (at paras. 43, 44, 47, 48, 51):
Justice Arbour reminded…in Lavalee, Rackel & Heintz v. Canada…[2002] 3 S.C.R. 209 [para. 49]:
…Before searching a law office, the investigative authorities must satisfy the issuing justice that there exists no other reasonable alternative to the search. …
The Agency had an affirmative obligation, which it disregarded, to demonstrate that there was no other alternative solution, and the judge could not ignore this. …
[T]he simple fact that a Trimax representative had mentioned that there were documents at his lawyer did not establish that such documents could not be found elsewhere. …
The absence of an alternative solution was not at all addressed in the information and the judge could not satisfy her formal review obligation respecting such absence on the basis of other alleged facts. …
[I]t would appear that it was ease and convenience which motivated the request for a search warrant for the law firm… .
The material fact that the law firm covered by the warrant acted for Trimax against the Agency in taxation files should have been disclosed. The Agency failed in its obligation…to be “full and frank” [citing Arujo, [2000] 2 S.C.R. 992, para. 46].