What is the current state of the law regarding access to warrant applications by the public?

In Canadian Broadcasting Corporation v. HMQ, 2013 CanLii 75897, Nordheimer J. refused to impose wide-ranging restrictions on the public's access to warrant application material. In so doing, he highlighted several factors that should be borne in mind when courts are faced with claims that pre-trial publicity poses a risk to jury impartiality. They include the fact that: (1) prospective jurors are questioned about that publicity, "[p]eople either paid little or no attention to the matter in the first instance, or have only the vaguest recollections of the event when questioned about it through the challenge [for cause] process." (para. 41); (2) even if such stories are available on the internet months after they are first published, members of the public are unlikely to access these until and unless they are told that they could be selected as a juror at the criminal trial and the details about the particular case only become apparent at the initial stage of the actual jury selection process. (para. 43); and (3) Judges caution prospective jurors at the earliest stage of the jury selection process against conducting any research about the case or persons involved in it and “we trust jurors to do their duty and follow the law in deciding a case.” (paras. 44-45).