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Strike Strickland: a made-in-Canada approach to ineffective counsel claims

The right to effective counsel is a right guaranteed under the American Constitution and sections 7 and 11(d) of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. A US Supreme Court decided a case called Strickland v Washington in 1980, establishing a two prong approach to ineffective defence counsel claims. The two prongs focused on the Performance and Prejudice Components. Notwithstanding the flaws of this approach, it was adopted into Canadian Jurisprudence by the Canadian Supreme Court in R v B (GD) in 2000, without commentary or analysis. This thesis submits that the Strickland test is too restrictive and unfairly requires a proof of prejudice to the rights of the accused. Included herein is an empirical study that examines the Canadian case law since 2000, the date B (GD) resulted in the adoption of the American test. This study reveals that the argument of ineffective counsel is seldom made: 316 cases in over 13,000 criminal appeals with success in only 50 cases. This translates into an average of less than 3 successful appeals