Articles 2020

Overview of the status of Toronto's OPA 524, its designation of PMTSAs, and the interplay with the City's Inclusionary Zoning By-law.

Discussion of the potential implications of the More Homes for Everyone Act on development of long-term care homes.

This article provides highlights and a summary of information shared by the WSIAT at its September 28, 2022 Stakeholder Event. Updates include announcements about upcoming changes to Tribunal process and practice with the Tribunal also providing a summary of several new and noteworthy decisions.

Subsection 168(1) states that GST/HST tax is generally payable on the earlier of when the consideration for the supply is paid and when it becomes due, the latter of which generally falls on the invoice date. However, in CFI Funding Trust v. The Queen, the Tax Court of Canada held that an invoice issued by the supplier is not necessary to claim an input tax credit and to satisfy requirements of the Excise Tax Act (Canada) and the Input Tax Credit Information (GST/HST) Regulations.

The general anti-avoidance rule in section 245 of the Income Tax Act is essentially an interpretive rule. In Canada Trustco, the Supreme Court adopted a single, unified approach to the misuse or abuse analysis, which rejected “abuse of the Act read as a whole” as a separate test. In the recent GAAR Consultation paper, the Finance expressed concern over the unified approach and considered codifying the “scheme” approach in Copthorne to give more weight to “abuse of the Act read as whole.”

Blockchain was first theorized as a concept in the early 1990s. However, it took 20 years before blockchain was utilized to create Bitcoin, the first cryptocurrency, in early 2009. While the use of blockchain to create cryptocurrencies took nearly 20 years, its popularity has exploded since the creation of Bitcoin. 

In the era of globalization and technology overtaking traditional business form, companies and individuals are spending more on obtaining intangible property in order to protect their unique identity by way of marks or patents or logos. With companies and businesses operating across the globe, the question arises as to which country has gained the right to levy taxes on profits arising out of intangible assets or property.

This paper first lays out the current system for determining the allocation of multinational enterprises’ revenues for the purposes of taxation, followed by a layered example to aid in clarification, a discussion on the concerns the current system enables, a brief overview of the OECD’s response of Pillar One, and some of the practical implementation issues Pillar One faces, concluding with views on how to more easily achieve the Pillar One aims in a fashion that may be met with less resistance.

This article summarizes Cavanaugh v. Grenville Christian College, 2022 ONSC 5405, in which the court used s. 25 of the Class Proceedings Act, 1992, to address a unique factual problem: the defendants were judgment proof and had erratic insurance coverage that covered some class members' claims but not others.

This article summarizes Bowman v Ontario, 2022 ONCA 477, which provides guidance to lower courts and practitioners on conducting a correct analysis under the cause of action (s. 5(1)(a)) criterion of the Class Proceedings Act.