Here's a look at the leave application decisions that the Supreme Court of Canada will be releasing on December 2, 2021.

Each week, we'll be providing a short blog post that summarizes some of the upcoming cases and gives a prediction of the probability that leave will be granted. These predictions will be based on our proprietary machine learning model and dataset of every leave application decision released by the Supreme Court of Canada from January 1, 2018 onward.

Each week, we'll group cases into four categories:

  • Cases to Watch – These are cases where our model predicts greater than a 25% chance that leave will be granted. These cases have a much better than average chance that leave will be granted. While this doesn't mean that all of them will get leave, they are worth watching as strong candidates.
  • Possible Contenders – These are cases where our model predicts between a 5% and 25% chance that leave will be granted. These cases have an average to somewhat above-average chance of getting leave. While most cases in this category won't get leave, on average, we expect to see a healthy minority of cases in this category being granted leave.
  • Unlikely Contenders – These are cases where our model predicts between a 1% and 5% chance that the case will get leave. The safe bet is against leave being granted in these cases, but we do expect to see it from time to time.
  • Long-Shots – These are cases where our model predicts a less than 1% chance that the case will get leave. Although it will happen from time to time, it would be an outlier for our model for these cases to be granted leave. We will not be providing summaries for these cases.

If this is your first time reading our weekly SCC leave predictions blog, have a look at an explanation and caveats about our model here.

THIS WEEK'S CASES

There are five leave application decisions coming out on December 2, 2021. Our model only predicts the probabilities of successful leave applications in cases where leave was sought from the Court of Appeal. We will not comment or provide a prediction on cases where leave was sought directly from a Superior Court decision or on cases in which we are involved. That leaves four cases in which we'll give a prediction.

You can find a detailed summary of all of the cases that are up for leave decisions this week here.

Cases to Watch

Her Majesty the Queen v Matthew James Johnston, et al.

  • Our Model's Prediction: This case has a 59% chance of getting leave.

Unlikely Contenders

Wesley Vander Leeuw v Her Majesty the Queen (Alta.)

  • Our Model's Prediction: This case has a 3% chance of getting leave.

Diane Vachon, et al. c Société de l'assurance automobile du Québec, et al.

  • Our Model's Prediction: This case has a 2% chance of getting leave.

Brad Cabana v Her Majesty the Queen in Right of Newfoundland and Labrador, et al.

  • Our Model's Prediction: This case has a 2% chance of getting leave.

The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.