The Ontario members of our group making a section 74 application (for judicial review of the cancellation of registration certificates) had filed a motion to subpoena the Firearms Registrar, who would then appear personally in court and be cross-examined. The AGC in turn had filed an application to quash these subpoenas.
On September 23, Justice O’Marra of the Superior Court presided over this matter. He was attentive and seemed very interested in the parties’ submissions. At the end, he remarked that in his long career as both counsel and judge, he has never had to deal with this particular issue (one of the parties moving to quash subpoenas issued in a s. 74 hearing).
Justice O’Marra also remarked that this is an important and novel legal issue that will likely affect many other guns onwards, and not just our group, and that he wants to reserve his judgment and provide detailed reasons. His decision will only be available on October 15, 2021. Consequently the s.74 hearings that were originally scheduled for the last week of September had to be re-scheduled for November 17-18.