Wood v Schaeffer[2] is a significant ruling of the Supreme Court of Canada concerning procedural requirements involving incidents arising from police misconduct.

In June 2009, in two separate incidents, officers of the Ontario Provincial Police shot and killed suspects (Minty and Schaeffer) in their investigations.

In the Minty investigation, the SIU Director concluded that "the lethal force used was not excessive" in the circumstances, but indicated that all witness officers had been instructed not to write up their notes until they had spoken to counsel.

In the Schaeffer investigation, the Director concluded that he could not form reasonable and probable grounds to believe that a criminal offence had been committed, as he could not rely on the information supplied by the police officers.

I have a statutory responsibility to conduct independent investigations and decide whether a police officer probably committed a criminal offence.

[a]The families of the deceased suspects initiated an action in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice for a declaration as to the nature of the police duty to cooperate with the SIU's investigations.

[12] There also continues to be controversy as to the lack of support given to the SIU by the provincial government in pursuing its role in this case and others, which has attracted criticism from the Ontario Ombudsman.