Admissibility of evidence amounts to a weighing of prejudicial impact against probative value?

R. v. Roach, 2011 NSCA 95 is an interesting decision from Nova Scotia.  The decision may stand for the remarkable proposition that admissibility of evidence amounts to a weighing of prejudicial impact against probative value.  Certainly that is a ground to exclude evidence but this case can be read to suggest that evidence which is otherwise inadmissible (here bad character) may be allowed regardless of an exclusion if the prejudicial impact is less than the probative value:

 

[46]         The admissibility of evidence is, generally, a matter of law.  On the point raised by the appellant in this ground of appeal, while the trial judge’s ruling on admissibility was informed by the application of correct principles of law, it nonetheless required the judge to weigh the prejudicial impact against probative value, and therefore is entitled to deference.  See for example R. v. Poulette, 2008 NSCA 95 (CanLII), 2008 NSCA 95 at para. 16; R. v. West, 2010 NSCA 16 (CanLII), 2010 NSCA 16 at para. 155; and R. v. Ward, 2011 NSCA 78 (CanLII), 2011 NSCA 78 at para. 28.  Applying that standard to this ground of appeal, I see no reason to intervene.