SCJ 2018

The applicant, a registered charity focused on poverty relief through public advocacy, challenged the Canada Revenue Agency's (CRA) interpretation and enforcement of section 149.1(6.2) of the Income Tax Act.

This section limits non-partisan political activities to "substantially all" of a charity's resources, which the CRA interpreted as 90% or more, effectively capping political activities at 10%.

The applicant argued this restriction infringed its freedom of expression under section 2(b) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

The court found that the CRA's 10% rule and the distinction between charitable and non-partisan political activities were unconstitutional, as they burdened the applicant's effective pursuit of its charitable purpose through advocacy.

The court approved a class action settlement concerning unpaid hours and overtime for non-managerial, non-unionized employees of GoodLife Fitness Centres Inc. The settlement, reached after mediation, provides $7.5 million to approximately 22,000 class members across various employment categories, along with $1 million in class counsel fees and a $10,000 honorarium for the representative plaintiff.

The court certified the class action for settlement purposes and found the settlement fair and reasonable given the litigation risks and the benefits secured for the class, including compensation without individual proof of damages.

The Applicant and Respondent brought motions for interim custody, access, and support.

The court addressed the temporary parenting plan, child support, and spousal support.

The parties had been living in a "nested" home post-separation, which led to significant conflict and negative impact on the children.

The court adopted a modified version of the Applicant's proposed parenting plan, which allocated more parenting time to the Applicant, and ordered the Respondent to attend counselling with a professional parenting specialist to improve his relationship with the children.

Child support was ordered based on the Federal Child Support Guidelines, and interim spousal support was ordered at the high end of the Spousal Support Advisory Guidelines.

The court also made consent orders regarding the sale of the matrimonial home and division of proceeds.

This was an uncontested trial where the Applicant sought equalization of Net Family Property (NFP), an unequal division of NFP, child support, spousal support, and a property transfer.

The Respondent was noted in default.

The court declined to make an equalization payment due to insufficient information but ordered an unequal division of NFP, finding the Respondent had recklessly depleted family assets.

Lump sum child and spousal support were awarded, secured by the transfer of the Respondent's interest in the matrimonial home and a rental property to the Applicant.

Divorce was granted.

The defendants brought a motion for summary judgment to dismiss the plaintiffs' claim and enforce alleged minutes of settlement.

The plaintiffs argued no binding settlement was reached and that summary judgment was unavailable without a statement of defence.

The court exercised its discretion under Rule 2.03 to allow the motion despite the lack of a statement of defence, given the plaintiffs had waived the requirement.

However, the court found the evidence regarding the plaintiffs' acceptance of the settlement equivocal, indicating a genuine issue for trial.

Due to evidentiary deficiencies and credibility issues, the court declined to grant summary judgment and instead ordered a mini-trial under Rule 20.04(2.2) to determine whether a binding settlement agreement was reached.

The appellant father appealed a final order of custody granting care of his biological child to the maternal grandmother.

The child, who has Native status, was found in need of protection after the mother passed away.

The father argued the trial judge erred in applying the best interests test, weighing his criminal record, and assessing the grandmother's commitment to the child's cultural heritage.

The appeal court dismissed the appeal, finding the trial judge made no palpable and overriding errors and properly considered the child's Native status and best interests.

The Crown brought an application for certiorari with mandamus in aid to quash a preliminary inquiry judge's order discharging the accused on charges related to human trafficking.

The accused had booked hotel rooms used by co-accused to exploit a 16-year-old complainant.

The Superior Court found that the preliminary inquiry judge committed jurisdictional errors by failing to consider the totality of the circumstantial evidence and failing to draw reasonable inferences favourable to the Crown regarding the accused's knowledge of the exploitation.

The application was granted, the discharge was set aside, and mandamus was issued directing committal for trial.

The offender pleaded guilty to two counts of trafficking in fentanyl and two counts of using a forged document.

She participated in a scheme where she used fraudulent prescriptions to obtain fentanyl patches from a pharmacy, which she then gave to a co-conspirator for financial gain.

The court considered the extreme danger of fentanyl, the offender's role as a low-level participant, her guilty plea, and her status as a first-time offender.

The court sentenced the offender to 26 months in jail concurrent on all counts, emphasizing denunciation and deterrence.

The defendant employer moved for summary judgment to dismiss a negligent misrepresentation claim regarding group life insurance benefits.

The plaintiff alleged the employer failed to adequately communicate a change in the definition of 'accident' in the policy, which resulted in the denial of accidental death benefits following the employee's fatal fall.

The court granted the motion and dismissed the action, finding no evidence of inaccurate information, negligence, reliance, or damages to support the misrepresentation claim.

The plaintiffs brought an action against their insurer, TD Insurance, for various claims including bad faith, breach of contract, and mental distress, stemming from an accident in 2003 and subsequent denial of benefits.

Both parties brought motions for summary judgment, and the plaintiffs also sought to strike the defendant's claim.

The defendant's motion for summary judgment was based on the expiry of the applicable limitation periods under the Limitations Act and the Insurance Act.

The court found that all of the plaintiffs' claims were statute-barred, having been commenced some 12 years after the accident and discovery of the claims.

The court dismissed the plaintiffs' allegations of bad faith and lack of production due to insufficient evidence.

Consequently, the defendant's motion for summary judgment was granted, and the plaintiffs' motions were dismissed.

The applicant, Genstar Development Partnership, sought to repurchase a property from the respondent, The Roman Catholic Episcopal Corporation of the Diocese of Hamilton, based on a right defined in an Agreement of Purchase and Sale.

Genstar claimed to be a successor or equitable assignee of the original vendor (Imasco) and sought specific performance.

The court dismissed the application, finding that Genstar failed to prove its status as a successor due to an incomplete evidentiary record.

As an assignee, Genstar failed to provide the statutory notice required by the Conveyancing and Law of Property Act.

Furthermore, the court found no anticipatory breach by the respondent and determined that Genstar's tenders were deficient due to an incorrect purchase price.

The applicant sought a stay of proceedings under s. 11(b) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms due to unreasonable delay in a sexual assault case.

The court dismissed the application, finding that the 30-month presumptive ceiling established in R. v. Jordan applied only to the period from charge to conviction (27 months and 10 days), not including post-conviction events like dangerous offender applications.

After deducting 85 days for defence delay and 14 days for a discrete exceptional event (flooding), the net delay was well below the 30-month ceiling.

The applicant failed to demonstrate that the delay was unreasonable or that the case took markedly longer than it should have.

This endorsement addresses costs following a motion to change child support, which the respondent brought.

Although success on the underlying motion was divided, the respondent was deemed the more successful party, entitling them to costs under Rule 24 of the Family Law Rules.

The applicant's offer to settle was not more favourable than the outcome.

Considering the divided success, the reasonableness of the lawyers' rates and time spent, and the principles of costs, the court fixed costs at $2,150, payable by the applicant to the respondent.

This endorsement addresses outstanding issues from a family law trial, including the precise calculation of retroactive and prospective child and spousal support, the set-off of support arrears against an equalization payment, and whether post-judgment interest should accrue on the equalization payment.

The court adopted the applicant's methodology for support calculations, which assigned full responsibility for the children's section 7 expenses to the respondent.

Retroactive support arrears owed by the respondent were set off against the equalization payment owed by the applicant.

The court declined to award post-judgment interest on the equalization payment, finding it just given the equalization payment's origin in a non-interest-bearing debt owed by the respondent to a corporate entity.

This high-conflict family law case addressed issues of custody, access, child support, and division of property.

The court granted the divorce, awarded sole custody of the child to the Respondent mother, and established a revised access schedule for the Applicant father, including mid-week overnight access.

The father's income was imputed to $35,000 for child support purposes, and retroactive child support was ordered.

The matrimonial home was ordered to be sold, with net proceeds and an equalization payment to the mother.

A restraining order sought by the mother was denied due to insufficient evidence of recent abuse.

The Alliance to Protect Prince Edward County (APPEC) sought a declaration that a Feed-In-Tariff (FIT) Contract between the Independent Electricity System Operator (IESO) and WPD White Pines Wind Incorporated (White Pines) was null and void, arguing White Pines failed to meet contractual capacity requirements.

APPEC also raised issues of legitimate expectations and negligent misrepresentation by IESO.

The court dismissed APPEC's application, finding that the doctrine of legitimate expectations did not apply as it creates procedural, not substantive, rights, and APPEC was not a party to the contract.

Furthermore, no special relationship existed to support a claim of negligent misrepresentation, and IESO and White Pines properly amended their contract in accordance with the FIT Rules and the Environmental Review Tribunal's decision.

The offender was convicted by a jury of importing 1.34 kilograms of cocaine.

The Crown sought a sentence of 45 months, while the defence sought 30 months.

The court considered the offender's significant personal hardships, including a difficult upbringing, abuse, severe health challenges, and a long history of steady employment despite these issues.

Finding that the offender's unique circumstances justified a departure from the usual 3 to 5 year range for importing a kilogram of cocaine, the court imposed a sentence of 33 months imprisonment.

The Crown brought an application to designate the offender as a dangerous offender following his convictions for aggravated assault and assault with a weapon stemming from a pre-planned attack on a fellow inmate.

The offender was already serving a 15-year sentence for prior violent offences.

The court declined to designate him a dangerous offender, finding that psychiatric evidence could not establish beyond a reasonable doubt that his violent conduct was intractable, given the impossibility of predicting his risk 15 years into the future when his current sentences expire.

Instead, the court designated him a long-term offender, imposing a 10-year Long-Term Supervision Order and a determinate sentence of 2.5 years consecutive for the predicate offences.

The applicant sought to set aside a separation agreement under s. 56(4) of the Family Law Act, alleging material misrepresentation and non-disclosure by the respondent regarding the valuation of a company.

The respondent had received letters of intent to purchase the company and was negotiating a buyout of his partner's interest while simultaneously negotiating the separation agreement with the applicant, without disclosing this information.

The court found that the respondent's failure to disclose this information constituted a material misrepresentation, both subjectively and objectively, and breached the duty of utmost good faith in family law negotiations.

The court exercised its discretion to set aside the entire separation agreement, declining to re-write it or address the oppression remedy under the Business Corporations Act at this stage.

The Plaintiffs, Jesse Fulton and Nicole White, sought costs following a successful trial against KOA Aloha Inc. The trial judgment awarded the Plaintiffs $71,146.69 in damages, which fell within the monetary jurisdiction of Rule 76 (simplified procedure).

The Plaintiffs requested substantial or partial indemnity costs, relying on Rule 49.10(1) due to their unaccepted settlement offers that were more favourable than the judgment.

The Defendant argued that Rule 76.13 should deny costs because the action did not proceed under simplified procedure and the Plaintiffs' recovery was within its limits.

The court found that the Plaintiffs made reasonable settlement efforts and beat all offers.

While acknowledging the Rule 76 issue and the Plaintiffs' decision to pursue specific performance and damages over $100,000 under ordinary procedure, the court deemed it reasonable for them to have done so.

The court awarded the Plaintiffs $45,000.00 in all-inclusive costs, representing a reduced partial indemnity to account for the Rule 76 issue.