A torrent works by breaking a file into small chunks, each of which can be shared between peers. This speeds up downloads because peer A could be sharing chunk 1 with you while peer B could be sharing chunk 8 with you etc.

The torrent client needs to reconstruct the file in order for you to use it.

None of the chunks is useful on its own.

In Canada, is it copyright infringement to use a modified torrent client that simply downloads the chunks and discards them upon receipt, never storing any chunk on disk, and never reconstructing any portion of the original file.

It seems to me that the downloader in this case would neither be transmitting nor reproducing the work (the two categories of rights held by copyright holders).