Decision in much delayed drug trial proves Jordan must be applied flexibly

Law360 Canada (February 2, 2026, 3:21 PM EST) --

John L. Hill

The Supreme Court of Canada has set a presumptive ceiling for delay at 18 months for cases tried in provincial court (R. v. Jordan, 2016 SCC 27). When an accused’s right to a speedy trial under s. 11(b) of the Charter is violated, charges should be stayed under s. 24(1) of the Charter.

Lakhpreet Brar and Sukhvir Singh were jointly charged in 27-count Information with drug trafficking, possession for the purpose of trafficking, possession of property obtained by crime, and conspiracy to commit an indictable offence. The charges arose from an investigation by the York Regional Police called “Project Cheetah.”

Project Cheetah began in May 2020, when an undercover officer of the York Regional Police purchased heroin from a person named Malhi. Through Malhi, undercover officers made contact with three senior drug traffickers in the United States. Over the next 11 months, undercover operations coordinated drug transactions with the traffickers by asking to purchase drugs that they would arrange for a local supplier in the Greater Toronto Area. The focus of Project Cheetah was investigating targets who coordinated their drug transactions through the senior traffickers. At the conclusion of the project, in April 2021, Canadian police arrested 29 people in Ontario and three in British Columbia. The Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) in the United States arrested the senior traffickers.

Project Cheetah was a massive, cross-border, multi-agency drug-trafficking investigation involving dozens of accused, enormous disclosure (over 86,000 files/300 gigabytes and coordinated prosecutions). The accused were tried jointly with the co-accused as part of a tightly connected conspiracy. Trial dates exceeded the 18-month Jordan ceiling by a modest amount.

When Singh and Brar came to trial in provincial court, they objected to the delay. They argued that their trials could have proceeded independently, either pursuant to their formal severance application or by the Crown’s choice of how to organize the prosecution. This was a multi-level prosecution, and although the Crown wanted to prosecute a larger number of the major players, it was also logical to separate the smaller players. The application judge stayed the charges, finding no exceptional circumstances and characterizing the charges as straightforward. He suggested that the Crown should have severed the proceedings to avoid delay. The Ontario Court of Justice held there had been an exceptional delay and stayed the charges (R. v. Brar, 2023 ONCJ 123).

The Crown appealed to the Ontario Court of Appeal. It argued that the application judge erred in failing to deduct 107 days for trial scheduling, given the complexity of the project. Joint trials were preferable to preserve systemic efficiency and ensure the truth-seeking function of trials would be consistent for all accused. The Appeal Court decision was released on Dec. 5, 2025 (R. v. Singh, 2025 ONCA 843).

The Ontario Court of Appeal allowed the Crown’s appeal and set aside the stays of proceedings granted for delay under s. 11(b) of the Charter. The court held that the application judge misapplied the Jordan framework by failing to properly account for the firm policy favouring joint trials and the structural complexity of significant project prosecutions.

The Court of Appeal found that the application judge should not have stayed the prosecution. It held as follows:

Joint trials are presumptively in the interests of justice, particularly in conspiracy and project prosecutions, and Jordan expressly accommodates modest additional delay caused by joint-trial scheduling.

The 107 days of delay attributable to coordinating multiple defence counsel in a joint trial constituted a discrete exceptional circumstance and should have been deducted.

After that deduction, the remaining delay was justified by the case’s complexity.

Complexity must be assessed holistically, considering the scale of the investigation, the volume of disclosure, the number of accused and organizational demands, not just the apparent simplicity of individual charges.

Severance was not a cure-all and would have undermined truth-seeking, risked inconsistent verdicts, increased systemic delay and conflicted with Jordan’s objectives.

The Crown had implemented a reasonable, concrete plan to move the case forward and was not required to achieve perfect efficiency or remain within the ceiling for a mega-project of this scale.

Accordingly, the court set aside the stays. It remitted the matters for trial, reaffirming that Jordan must be applied flexibly to preserve both the timeliness of justice and the viability of complex, multi-accused prosecutions.

John L. Hill practised and taught prison law until his retirement. He holds a JD from Queen’s and an LLM in constitutional law from Osgoode Hall. His most recent book, Acts of Darkness (Durvile & UpRoute Books), was released July 1. Hill is also the author of Pine Box Parole: Terry Fitzsimmons and the Quest to End Solitary Confinement (Durvile & UpRoute Books) and The Rest of the (True Crime) Story (AOS Publishing). Contact him at johnlornehill@hotmail.com.

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