The appellant solicitor prepared a prospectus for a company that later went bankrupt.
The Alberta Securities Commission investigated and subsequently issued a notice of hearing under the new Securities Act to determine if the appellant should be subject to a cease trading order.
The appellant argued that the Commission's overlapping investigatory and adjudicatory functions created a reasonable apprehension of bias, and that the new Act could not be applied retrospectively to his past conduct.
The Supreme Court of Canada dismissed the appeal, holding that the Commission's overlapping functions were statutorily authorized and did not raise a reasonable apprehension of bias.
Furthermore, the Court held that the presumption against retrospectivity did not apply because the new statutory provisions were protective of the public rather than penal.
