How the Supreme Court of Canada’s unified textual, contextual and purposive approach in Canada Trustco continues to govern every general anti-avoidance rule assessment issued by the CRA
A Case Every Canadian Tax Lawyer Cites, But Few Explain on Its Own Terms
Practitioners invoke Canada Trustco Mortgage Co. v. Canada, 2005 SCC 54, [2005] 2 S.C.R. 601, in almost every discussion of the general anti-avoidance rule, yet the decision rarely receives sustained treatment as a subject in its own right. The Supreme Court of Canada released Canada Trustco alongside its companion decision in Mathew v. Canada, 2005 SCC 55, on October 19, 2005, and together the two rulings gave the general anti-avoidance rule its first substantive judicial interpretation since Parliament enacted section 245 of the Income Tax Act in 1988. For a knowledgeable Canadian tax lawyer, Canada Trustco is not simply a citation to be dropped into a factum. It supplies the interpretive architecture, the three-step test and
