An accused person has an absolute right to remain silent. This is a foundational right enshrined in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Everyone has this right. In this case this Superior Court Judge decided that because an accused person denied one specific allegation, he must have admitted the rest of the allegations. Our Court of Appeal had to set the Judge straight.
“[4] We conclude that the trial judge erred by treating the appellant’s silence in his police statement as a “tacit admission” of guilt to the offences that he did not explicitly deny. The trial judge’s error was foundational because it materially affected her assessment of the appellant’s testimony, leading her to reject it, and of the complainant’s testimony, by bolstering it. Moreover, her finding of the appellant’s “tacit admission” of guilt served as one of the principal bases for her finding of the appellant’s guilt on the charges. We set aside the convictions and order a new trial. It is unnecessary to consider the sentence appeal.
[14] An accused’s right to silence in the face of police questioning is fundamental under the common law and has received “Charter benediction” under s. 7 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms: R. v. Turcotte, 2005 SCC 50, [2005] 2 S.C.R. 519, at paras. 41-42. The choice to remain completely silent, or to impart some but not all information, can never be used as evidence of guilt: Turcotte, at paras. 44-46, 52.
[20] It is clear from her reasons reproduced above that the trial judge accepted the trial Crown’s submission that, in denying one allegation, the appellant’s silence regarding the other allegations and the text amounted to admissions. The inference suggested by the Crown amounted to an impermissible inference of guilt from silence. That is especially so because the appellant asserted his right to silence more than once during the interview. The trial judge relied on these “tacit admissions” as foundational support for her findings of guilt against the appellant with respect to the charges for which he was convicted.
[22] As such, the trial judge erred by using the appellant’s silence to infer guilt. A new trial is required.
https://www.canlii.org/en/on/onca/doc/2026/2026onca116/2026onca116.html