Canada's top court has put off making a decision on whether the National Post can be compelled to reveal a confidential source, a case that could affect the future of news reporting.

Lawyers for the National Post were at the Supreme Court Friday to appeal last year's Ontario Court of Appeal ruling that ordered journalist Andrew McIntosh to hand over documents to the RCMP.

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and the Globe and Mail are interveners in the case, arguing that handing over the documents would harm the media's ability to do their job.

In 2001, a source sent McIntosh a brown envelope containing a copy of what appeared to be a Business Development Bank of Canada loan authorization for a hotel in former prime minister Jean Chrétien's home riding, suggesting Chrétien could be in a possible conflict of interest.

The document indicated the Grand-Mère Inn owed Chrétien's family company $23,040 in 1997, the same year he was lobbying the president of the bank to grant the loan.

BDBC officials went to the police claiming the document was a fake. The police later obtained a search warrant and assistance order for the document and the envelope to determine who sent them.

But in 2004, the Ontario Superior Court quashed the warrant and the order, citing journalist-source confidentiality as one of the reasons.

Last year, however, the Ontario Court of Appeal overturned that ruling. It ordered the National Post and McIntosh to hand over the documents, saying the need to enforce the law should outweigh the need to protect anonymous sources.

The court said police investigators need the documents for forensic testing, adding that if the documents were false, the newspaper would be shielding a potential wrongdoer from prosecution.

It's not known when the Supreme Court will make its final decision.

With files from The Canadian Press