In my view it would be ironic if, in a judgment that was conspicuously aimed at advancing "the triumph of a principled analysis over a set of ossified judicially created categories", the Supreme Court were to have required judges to abandon the path of principle and to determine admissibility on the basis of an imaginary set of circumstances. An approach that treated a witness as if he were an accused and a witness statement as if it were a confession, completely apart from its Alice-in-Wonderland undertones, would succeed only in vindicating rights that have not been threatened and in remedying harms that have not occurred.
R. v. Hamilton
2003 CarswellOnt 1830
Ontario Court of Justice