Paul Daly

The appellant challenged the vires of the Federal Child Support Guidelines, enacted by the Governor in Council under the Divorce Act, arguing that the GIC exceeded its authority because the Guidelines require the payer parent to bear a greater share of child-related costs than the recipient parent.

The Supreme Court held that the reasonableness standard under the Vavilov framework presumptively applies when reviewing the vires of subordinate legislation, and that the 'irrelevant, extraneous or completely unrelated' threshold from Katz Group is no longer good law.

Applying reasonableness review, the Court concluded that the Child Support Guidelines fall within the GIC's extremely broad statutory authority under s. 26.1 of the Divorce Act and are therefore intra vires.

The appeal was dismissed with costs.

This costs endorsement followed a partial success on appeal where the appellant, Justice of the Peace Lauzon, had her appeal from the merits decision dismissed but her appeal from the disposition decision allowed, resulting in a reprimand and 30-day suspension instead of removal from office.

While the parties agreed on costs for the appeal, Divisional Court, and leave motion, they disagreed on the costs of the original hearing before the Hearing Panel.

The appellant sought full reimbursement for these hearing costs, arguing her appeal success effectively overruled the reasons for their previous reduction.

The Court of Appeal dismissed this request, finding that the appellant had not sought leave to appeal the Divisional Court's decision on the Hearing Panel's costs recommendation, nor had she demonstrated any reversible error.

The court concluded that the partial success on appeal did not affect the reasonableness of the Hearing Panel's original costs recommendation, and therefore made no order regarding those costs.

The appellant law society brought disciplinary proceedings against a member lawyer in 2012, resulting in a finding of guilt on four charges and disbarment in 2019.

The respondent applied for a stay of proceedings on the basis of inordinate delay amounting to an abuse of process; the Hearing Committee dismissed the application but the Court of Appeal granted the stay, setting aside the penalty.

The Supreme Court clarified the three-step test from Blencoe for determining whether administrative delay constitutes an abuse of process: the delay must be inordinate, it must have directly caused significant prejudice, and a final assessment must find the delay manifestly unfair or otherwise bringing the administration of justice into disrepute.

The Court also held that in statutory appeals, questions of procedural fairness and abuse of process are subject to appellate standards of review, not the correctness standard applicable on judicial review.

Applying these principles, the majority found no palpable and overriding error in the Hearing Committee's conclusions that the delay was not inordinate and that no significant prejudice was established, and accordingly allowed the appeal.