Forgery Lawyer in Toronto

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A forgery allegation in Toronto almost never stays a single charge. The same altered PDF, cheque, letter or credit application can support one count of forgery for making a false document under section 366 of the Criminal Code and a second count under section 368 for using, trafficking in or possessing it, each carrying up to 10 years. Add forgery instruments at 14 years, identity documents under s.56.1 and fraud under s.380, and one document can anchor an entire indictment. Kazandji Law defends forgery and false-document charges from our head office at 180 John Street, minutes from Toronto's downtown criminal courts.

By Fadi Matthew Kazandji, Founding Partner, Kazandji Law. Updated July 2026.

What Counts as a False Document Under Section 321

Every Toronto forgery prosecution is built on two definitions in section 321 of the Criminal Code, and both are broader than most people expect.

A document is any paper, parchment or other material on which is recorded or marked anything that is capable of being read or understood by a person, a computer system or another device, and the definition expressly includes a credit card, while excluding trade marks on articles of commerce. Nothing in it requires ink or paper. A PDF, a scanned letter, a spreadsheet, a digital pay statement, an e-signature block or a record in a database can all qualify, because each records something a person or a computer system can read.

A false document is defined by three distinct branches, and which branch the Crown relies on shapes the whole defence:

• False authorship. The whole or a material part of the document purports to be made by or on behalf of a person who did not make it or authorize it, or who does not exist at all.
• False in a material particular. The document really was made by the person who purports to make it, but it is false in some material particular.
• Passing off authorship. The document is made in the name of an existing person, by that person or under their authority, but with fraudulent intent that it pass as being made by someone else.

Those branches carry practical consequences. If the person whose name appears on the document actually authorized it, the first branch fails. If the disputed detail is trivial rather than material, the second branch is vulnerable. Toronto forgery files typically involve mortgage and loan applications, employment and reference letters, academic records, medical notes, insurance paperwork, invoices, cheques and payment cards, and in each, the real battleground is rarely whether the item is a document. It almost always is. The fight is over whether the Crown can prove the document is false within one of the three statutory branches, and that the person charged is the one who made or altered it with the state of mind sections 366 and 368 demand.

Making vs Using: Toronto's Two Core Forgery Offences

Section 366(1) creates the offence most people mean by forgery: everyone commits forgery who makes a false document, knowing it to be false, with intent that it should in any way be used or acted on as genuine, to the prejudice of anyone, whether inside Canada or not, or with intent that a person should be induced, by the belief that it is genuine, to do or refrain from doing anything. Prejudice or inducement anywhere in the world will do; the section says so expressly.

Making is far wider than creating a document from scratch. Under s.366(2), making a false document includes altering a genuine document in any material part, making a material addition to a genuine document, adding a false date, attestation, seal or other material thing, and making a material alteration by erasure, obliteration, removal or in any other way. Changing a single date on a genuine letter, or transplanting a genuine signature onto a page it never belonged to, is making a false document.

There is one statutory carve-out: under s.366(5), no forgery is committed where a person makes a false document in good faith at the request of a police force, the Canadian Forces or a federal or provincial department or agency, the exception that shelters authorized undercover and covert government work.

Using, trafficking and possession: section 368

Section 368(1) then criminalizes what happens after the making. Everyone commits an offence who, knowing or believing that a document is forged, does any of four things:

• Uses the document, deals with it or acts on it as if it were genuine;
• Causes or attempts to cause any person to use, deal with or act on it as if it were genuine;
• Transfers, sells or offers to sell it, or makes it available to any person, knowing that, or being reckless as to whether, an offence under the first two branches will be committed;
• Possesses it with intent to commit an offence under any of the first three branches.

Notice the recklessness tier built into the trafficking branch: a person who passes a forged document along does not need to know for certain that someone will use it, recklessness about that use is enough. And under s.368(2), the place where the document was forged is not material: Toronto courts can try a s.368 charge even where the document was forged in another province or another country, a point that matters constantly in payment-card and foreign-document files.

The two offences are separate wrongs. Crown counsel routinely lay a s.366 count and a s.368 count over the same document, and a person who never forged anything can still be convicted under s.368 for knowingly using a document forged by someone else.

Forgery Penalties: the Section-by-Section Map

Almost every offence in this cluster is hybrid, the Crown elects to proceed by indictment or by summary conviction, and that election drives both the maximum penalty and the procedure that follows. Two exceptions stand out in the table below.

Offence	Criminal Code section	Procedure	Maximum penalty
Forgery, making a false document	s.366, punished under s.367	Hybrid	10 years on indictment
Use, trafficking or possession of a forged document	s.368	Hybrid	10 years on indictment
Forgery instruments, devices, materials and tools	s.368.1	Hybrid	14 years on indictment
Exchequer bill paper, bank-note paper and public seals	s.369	Indictable only	14 years
Identity documents of another person	s.56.1	Hybrid	5 years on indictment
Fraud over $5,000 (comparison)	s.380(1)(a)	Indictable	14 years; mandatory minimum 2 years where the value exceeds $1 million
Fraud at or under $5,000 (comparison)	s.380(1)(b)	Hybrid	2 years on indictment, or summary conviction

Two anomalies deserve attention. First, the tools score higher than the crime: possessing forgery instruments under s.368.1 carries 14 years, while forgery itself tops out at 10. Second, s.369, which covers making, using or possessing paper resembling exchequer bill paper, revenue paper or bank-note paper, and making, reproducing or using a public seal of Canada, a province, a public body or a court, is straight indictable with no summary option at all. And where the alleged forgery fed a scheme that actually obtained money or credit, expect the Crown to add a fraud over $5,000 count on top of the document charges.

Forgery Instruments: Section 368.1 and R. v. Mac

Section 368.1 targets the toolkit rather than the document. It is an offence, without lawful authority or excuse, to make, repair, buy, sell, export from Canada, import into Canada or possess any instrument, device, apparatus, material or thing that the person knows has been used to commit forgery, or knows is adapted or intended for that use. The provision was added to the Criminal Code in 2009 as part of Parliament's identity-crime package, and it is hybrid with a maximum of 14 years on indictment: higher than forgery itself.

The leading case is R. v. Mac, 2002 SCC 24, a Toronto-area prosecution over machines and materials capable of being used to forge credit cards, charged under the predecessor provision. The Ontario Court of Appeal had found the word adapted ambiguous, did it mean modified for forgery, or merely suitable for it? The Supreme Court of Canada settled the point by reading the English text against the narrower French version, adapté: adapted means suitable for the purpose. The Crown does not have to show the item was altered or customized for forgery at all.

That single word does a lot of work today. Printers, laminators, embossing machines, card readers and writers, hologram stock, high-resolution scanners, template files and design software are all suitable for forgery in the hands of someone who intends that use. What separates an ordinary office or design studio from a forgery lab is almost entirely mental, not mechanical: what did the person know about how an item had been used, and what use was intended? Those knowledge and intent elements, together with the lawful authority or excuse clause that protects people who hold such equipment for legitimate work, are where s.368.1 prosecutions are won and lost.

How Digital Forgery Is Proven, and Challenged

Most modern Toronto forgery files are digital at their core, and they are proven, or not, through electronic traces: file metadata such as creation and modification timestamps and author fields, software revision histories, layered edits inside PDF and image files, printer and scanner artifacts, email and cloud-account records, and the contents of seized phones and computers.

It is worth being precise about what the Crown must establish beyond a reasonable doubt. On a s.366 count: that the document is false within the s.321 definition, that the accused is the person who made or altered it, that the accused knew it was false, and that the accused intended it to be used or acted on as genuine. On a s.368 count: that the accused knew or believed the document was forged, plus the prohibited use, dealing, trafficking or possession with intent. Every one of those elements is a separate target for the defence.

Attribution is the classic weak point. Shared family computers, multi-user workplaces, cloud accounts signed in on several devices, and documents that pass through many hands can all break the chain between a false file and one specific set of fingers on a keyboard. Metadata may show when a file changed, it does not always show who changed it, and it can itself be incomplete or unreliable.

Defence work in these files runs on three tracks: an independent forensic review of the documents and devices the Crown relies on; scrutiny of the continuity and integrity of electronic exhibits, from how devices were imaged to how copies were handled; and Charter section 8 litigation over the searches of phones, computers and accounts that produced the evidence. Where a search was unreasonable, an application to exclude the evidence can take the foundation out of the prosecution.

Forged ID, Immigration Documents and Section 56.1

When the document at issue is identification, a second offence enters the picture. Section 56.1 makes it a crime, without lawful excuse, to procure to be made, possess, transfer, sell or offer an identity document that relates to another person. It is hybrid, with a maximum of five years on indictment, and s.56.1(3) spells out what counts: a Social Insurance Number card, a driver's licence, a health insurance card, a birth or death certificate, a passport, a citizenship certificate, a document indicating immigration status, a certificate of Indian status, and an employee identity card bearing a photograph and signature.

Parliament built exceptions directly into s.56.1(2): acting in good faith in the ordinary course of business, employment or office; genealogical purposes; possession with the consent of the person the document relates to or of the issuing authority; and legitimate purposes connected to the administration of justice.

The interplay with forgery matters. A counterfeit licence or doctored immigration document is a false document, so ss.366 and 368 apply alongside s.56.1, and because s.368(2) makes the place of forging immaterial, documents produced abroad can still ground Toronto charges. A genuine card belonging to someone else engages s.56.1 without any forgery at all. And where the allegation is broader impersonation, account takeover or use of another person's identity information, that is its own body of law, see our Toronto identity theft lawyers page.

Forgery vs Fraud: Where Section 380 Takes Over

Forgery and fraud travel together in Toronto courtrooms, but they punish different things. In R. v. Théroux, [1993] 2 S.C.R. 5, the Supreme Court set out the framework for fraud under s.380: the actus reus is (1) deceit, falsehood or some other fraudulent means, and (2) deprivation, an actual loss, or the victim's pecuniary interests put at risk. Fraud is about consequences to someone's economic position.

Forgery needs none of that. It criminalizes the false document itself and is complete the moment the document is made with the required knowledge and intent, before anyone is deceived and before a dollar moves. That is why a forged document so often becomes the falsehood inside a later fraud count: forged bank statements supporting a mortgage application can yield a s.366 count for making them, a s.368 count for submitting them, and a fraud count once funds are advanced or pecuniary interests are put at risk.

The fraud tiers then set the stakes: fraud over $5,000 or on a testamentary instrument is indictable with a 14-year maximum, and s.380(1.1) adds a mandatory minimum of two years where the total value exceeds $1 million, while fraud at or under $5,000 is hybrid, with two years on indictment or summary conviction. Kazandji Law defends both: see our fraud over $5,000 and fraud under $5,000 pages.

How Forgery Cases Are Investigated and Prosecuted in Toronto

Document and payment-card forgery in Toronto is principally the territory of the Toronto Police Service Financial Crimes unit, which sits within the Specialized Operations Command and investigates multi-jurisdictional fraud involving the manufacturing, forgery and distribution of payment cards, currency, cheques and other valuable instruments. These investigations typically run alongside bank security teams and partner agencies, and they build slowly, account records, production orders and device seizures long before any arrest.

Project Déjà Vu shows the pattern. In that TPS Financial Crimes investigation into synthetic-identity credit fraud, a scheme dating back to 2016, with the investigation launched in October 2022, twelve men were arrested on 102 charges, including fraud, forgery, unauthorized possession of credit card data and laundering proceeds of crime. Forgery counts rarely arrive alone; they arrive bundled inside exactly this kind of file.

The court path is standard: charges start at the Ontario Court of Justice at 10 Armoury Street, indictable matters can move to the Superior Court of Justice at 361 University Avenue, and adult bail hearings, including weekend and statutory-holiday (WASH) court, run through the Toronto Regional Bail Centre at 2201 Finch Avenue West. The most consequential decisions often happen before court ever sits: whether to give a statement when a detective or bank investigator calls, and how the electronic disclosure is attacked once it arrives. Our recent results show how often early, document-level work changes outcomes.

Defences to Forgery Charges

Forgery prosecutions stand or fall on documents and states of mind, which gives the defence more angles than most offences:

• No knowledge of falsity. Section 366 requires making a false document knowing it to be false; s.368 requires knowledge or belief that the document is forged. A person who honestly believed the document was accurate or authorized is not guilty.
• No intent that it be treated as genuine. The intent branches of s.366(1) require that the document be meant to be used or acted on as genuine, to someone's prejudice or to induce action. Drafts, samples, mock-ups and props made without that intent fall outside the offence.
• Authorship and authorization. Under s.321, a document made or authorized by the person it purports to come from is not falsely made under the first branch of the definition. Authority to sign, actual or honestly believed, is a recurring live issue in workplace and family files.
• Attribution failure. The Crown must prove who made or altered the file. Shared devices and accounts, and gaps in the electronic trail, can leave that element short of proof beyond a reasonable doubt.
• Good-faith government request. Section 366(5) exempts false documents made in good faith at the request of a police force, the Canadian Forces or a federal or provincial department or agency.
• Lawful authority or excuse. For instruments under s.368.1 and the paper-and-seals offences in s.369, holding equipment or materials for legitimate work is a built-in answer the Crown must exclude.
• Continuity and integrity of exhibits. Electronic evidence must be properly seized, imaged and preserved; defects go to both admissibility and weight.
• Charter challenges. Searches of phones, computers and cloud accounts engage section 8 of the Charter. Where a search was unreasonable, exclusion of the evidence can gut the Crown's case.

Because ss.366, 367 and 368 are hybrid, the Crown's election is itself a live battleground, and the defence position on the strength of the documents often shapes that election, the forum and the realistic range of outcomes.

The Section 369 Offences: Bank-Note Paper and Public Seals

One corner of the forgery cluster is treated more severely than all the rest. Section 369 makes it an offence, without lawful authority or excuse, to make, use or possess exchequer bill paper, revenue paper or paper used for bank notes, or any paper intended to resemble them, and to make, reproduce or use a public seal of Canada or of a province, or the seal of a public body or authority in Canada or of a court of law.

Unlike forgery itself, these offences are straight indictable: there is no summary conviction option, and the maximum is 14 years. Parliament reserved that treatment for the raw materials of official documents, the paper money is printed on and the seals that make government and court documents speak with authority. In practice, s.369 allegations tend to surface inside larger files about counterfeit instruments and document mills, and the same defence pressure points apply: knowledge, intended use, and the lawful authority or excuse that covers printers, engravers and institutions that handle such materials legitimately.

Charged or Under Investigation in Toronto? The First 72 Hours

What you do immediately after learning of a forgery investigation often matters as much as anything that happens in court later:

• Do not explain yourself to investigators. Detectives and bank or workplace investigators are trained interviewers, and forgery cases turn on knowledge and intent, exactly what an informal chat is designed to pin down. Be polite, take names, and say your lawyer will be in touch.
• Preserve everything. Do not delete files, messages or accounts. Deletion rarely helps and can be portrayed as consciousness of guilt; worse, it destroys material that may support you, drafts, emails and messages showing authorization or someone else's involvement.
• Gather your authorization trail. If you signed with permission, held documents for your job, or received the file from someone else, collect the texts, emails and letters that prove it while they are still retrievable.
• Do not contact the complainant, the bank or co-accused about the allegation. Communication after the fact is a common source of new counts and bail complications.
• Get counsel before your first appearance. Early defence work, on disclosure, Crown election and the forensic record, shapes everything that follows.

Why Kazandji Law for a Toronto Forgery Charge

Forgery files are won in the paperwork, the metadata, the account records, the disclosure gaps, and that is where we start. Founding partner Fadi Matthew Kazandji defends forgery, fraud and financial-crime allegations with a document-first approach: independent review of every file the Crown relies on, early engagement with prosecutors on election and resolution, and trial preparation aimed at the knowledge and intent elements where these cases are actually decided. Explore our full criminal defence practice and our recent case successes.

We defend forgery and false-document charges across the GTA from four offices:

• Toronto (head office): 180 John St, Unit 320, minutes from the Ontario Court of Justice at 10 Armoury Street and the Superior Court of Justice at 361 University Avenue;
• Thornhill: 7191 Yonge St, Suite 310, serving Markham and York Region;
• North York;
• Oakville.

Toronto Forgery Charges: Frequently Asked Questions

This page is general legal information for people facing forgery-related allegations in Ontario. It is not legal advice about any specific case. Criminal Code provisions summarized here were reviewed against the official Justice Laws website in July 2026 and may change. Contact Kazandji Law for advice tailored to your situation.