Christine Mohr

This appeal considered whether actuarial surpluses recorded in federal public-sector superannuation accounts were assets in which plan members held legal or equitable interests.

The Court held the accounts were statutory accounting records tracking Consolidated Revenue Fund transactions, not segregated asset pools.

It rejected claims based on proprietary entitlement, fiduciary duty, unjust enrichment, constructive trust, and alleged expropriation.

The Court further held the statutory amendments authorized debiting surplus amounts and did not require compensation.

The appeal was dismissed with costs.

The federal government sought costs of $16,235.75 on a partial indemnity scale against the Barbra Schlifer Commemorative Clinic and the City of Toronto following the dismissal of their respective motions for leave to appeal and leave to intervene regarding changes to the firearms registry.

The court declined to award costs against the City of Toronto, noting the usual rule that intervenors are neither granted nor awarded costs and that the City acted in good faith.

The court also declined to award costs against the Clinic, recognizing it as a non-profit organization that advanced a claim in the public interest with a genuine interest in the issues in dispute.

The City of Toronto sought leave to intervene in a motion for leave to appeal a decision refusing an interlocutory injunction regarding the federal firearms registry.

The underlying application by the Barbra Schlifer Commemorative Clinic challenged the constitutionality of legislation eliminating the requirement to register unrestricted firearms.

The court dismissed the City's motion to intervene, finding that the City could not make a useful contribution to the narrow issue of whether leave to appeal should be granted, as no further evidence would be admitted and the applicant could fully argue the relevant issues.

The moving party sought leave to appeal a decision refusing an interlocutory injunction to prevent the federal government from destroying data about unrestricted firearms in the Firearms Registry.

The moving party argued that the destruction of data would disproportionately affect women and endanger their safety, violating sections 7 and 15 of the Charter.

The Divisional Court dismissed the motion, finding no conflicting decisions that applied different principles and no good reason to doubt the correctness of the motion judge's discretionary decision to refuse the injunction.

The applicant, a clinic providing services to victims of domestic violence, brought an application challenging the constitutionality of the federal government's repeal of the long-gun registry under sections 7 and 15 of the Charter.

The respondents moved to strike the application under Rule 21 for disclosing no reasonable cause of action.

The applicant moved for an interlocutory injunction to prevent the destruction of the registry data pending the hearing of the application.

The court dismissed the respondents' motion to strike, finding the claims were not plainly and obviously doomed to fail given the novelty of the issues.

However, the court also dismissed the applicant's motion for an interlocutory injunction, concluding that while there was a serious issue to be tried, the evidence of irreparable harm was weak and the balance of convenience favoured the public interest in the enacted legislation.

The appellants, the Attorneys General of Canada and Ontario, appealed a decision regarding the enforcement of sponsorship debts against eight sponsors whose relatives received social assistance.

The Supreme Court of Canada held that while the government has a duty to collect the full sponsorship debt, it retains a limited discretion to defer enforcement based on a sponsor's circumstances.

In exercising this discretion, the government owes a minimal duty of procedural fairness to notify the sponsor, allow them to explain their circumstances, consider those circumstances, and notify them of the decision.

The Court found that Ontario's debt collection policy did not improperly fetter its discretion and met the requirements of procedural fairness.

The parties consented to an order fixing the costs of the appeal at $100,000, all inclusive, payable to the respondent Crown.

The appellants, representing federal public servants, RCMP, and Canadian Forces personnel, appealed the dismissal of their actions seeking the return of over $28 billion to their pension plans.

The Government had amortized and later withdrawn actuarial surpluses from the Superannuation Accounts.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding that the Superannuation Accounts were merely legislated ledgers containing no actual assets, as employee contributions were deposited into the Consolidated Revenue Fund.

The Court held that the Government did not owe a fiduciary duty to the plan members regarding the surplus, nor was it unjustly enriched.

Furthermore, the 2000 amendments to the governing statutes clearly authorized the Government to withdraw the actuarial surplus.

The appellant, a U.S. corporation, submitted a bid for a military procurement contract.

When another bidder was awarded the contract, the appellant filed a complaint with the Canadian International Trade Tribunal (CITT) alleging violations of the Agreement on Internal Trade (AIT).

The CITT ruled the appellant had standing, but the Federal Court of Appeal quashed the ruling.

The Supreme Court of Canada dismissed the appeal, holding that non-Canadian suppliers do not have standing before the CITT to bring a complaint under the AIT, as the AIT is a domestic free trade agreement and its procurement provisions apply only to Canadian suppliers.

The appellant, a former resident of an Indian Residential School, brought a civil action alleging he was sexually assaulted by a supervisor decades earlier.

The trial judge found the appellant credible despite inconsistencies in his testimony and concluded the assaults occurred.

The Court of Appeal overturned the decision, holding that the trial judge failed to apply a standard of proof commensurate with the serious nature of the allegations.

The Supreme Court of Canada allowed the appeal and restored the trial judge's decision, definitively ruling that there is only one standard of proof in civil cases: proof on a balance of probabilities.

The Court rejected the notion of a shifting standard based on the gravity of the allegations and clarified that corroboration is not legally required in civil sexual assault claims.

The Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) audited the Redeemer Foundation, a registered charity, regarding its forgivable loan program.

The CRA requested and obtained donor information from the Foundation without prior judicial authorization, and subsequently used this information to reassess the donors' tax returns.

The Foundation applied for judicial review, arguing the CRA needed judicial authorization under section 231.2(2) of the Income Tax Act to obtain information about unnamed persons.

The Supreme Court of Canada dismissed the appeal, holding that the Minister was entitled to the donor information under the broad audit powers in section 231.1(1) combined with the charity's record-keeping obligations under section 230(2)(a), and that judicial authorization was not required when the information was sought for the legitimate purpose of auditing the charity.

Following the allowance of the Crown's appeal, the Crown sought costs of the action against the Litigation Administrator and Litigation Guardian, solely to support a Rule 57.07 award of costs against Class Counsel personally.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the request, finding that while Class Counsel's conduct in pursuing the matter following the Supreme Court's decision was questionable, it did not constitute bad faith or the type of conduct required to found an order for costs against a solicitor personally under the test in Young v. Young.

The cost orders of the trial judge were set aside as a result of the original order allowing the appeal.

The Crown appealed a motion judge's decision awarding $4.6 billion in damages to a class of disabled veterans for the Crown's failure to invest or pay interest on administered pension funds prior to 1990.

The Court of Appeal allowed the appeal, finding that a previous Supreme Court of Canada decision upholding the validity of s. 5.1(4) of the Department of Veterans Affairs Act finally ended the litigation.

The Court held that s. 5.1(4) constituted a complete bar to the class's claims for damages, and that the motion judge erred in interpreting it as only a partial bar.

Furthermore, the Court found that the claims were time-barred and that the doctrine of equitable fraud did not apply to toll the limitation period.

The appellant appealed the judgment of the lower court.

The Court of Appeal agreed with the reasons of the lower court judge and dismissed the appeal.

In the circumstances, the court declined to order costs on the appeal.

The Attorney General of Canada moved for an order to clarify its status in an appeal where the appellants challenged the constitutionality of the State Immunity Act.

The Attorney General had intervened at trial to defend the Act's constitutionality.

The Court of Appeal held that under s. 109(5) of the Courts of Justice Act, the Attorney General retains intervener status but acquires certain appellate rights limited to the constitutional issue.

The Court ordered the title of proceedings amended to show the Attorney General as an Intervener (Respondent) and permitted the filing of a supplementary exhibits book.