Canada: Trials & Appeals & Compensation

A missed Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) email notification may cause Canadian taxpayers to lose CRA objection rights after a CRA tax reassessment. The CRA has moved most of its correspondence with taxpayers online.

The word “sham” gets used loosely in tax disputes — taxpayers and the Canada Revenue Agency (“CRA”) both throw it around when a transaction looks aggressive or artificial. But in Canadian tax law, sham is a precise legal doctrine with a narrow scope.

Garnishment allows judgment creditors to intercept money owed to debtors by third parties, such as banks or employers. While this legal tool can be highly effective for debt collection in certain circumstances, it comes with procedural requirements, exemptions, and practical challenges that creditors must navigate. Understanding when garnishment works best and its limitations is essential for anyone seeking to collect on a judgment in British Columbia.

Section 160 of the Income Tax Act is one of the Canada Revenue Agency’s most powerful collection tools. It can make the recipient of a property transfer jointly and severally liable for the transferor’s unpaid tax debt where the property moved for less than fair market value to a non-arm’s-length person.

The Federal Court of Appeal’s decision in IWK Health Centre v. Canada, 2026 FCA 113, confirms that employers cannot claim a GST/HST public service body rebate for employee reimbursements relating to personal healthcare services such as acupuncture, massage therapy, naturopathy, and homeopathy merely because the employer is contractually required to provide those benefits.

This comprehensive weekly summary analyzes five significant Ontario Court of Appeal decisions from August 10-14, 2026, covering constitutional challenges to bike lane removal legislation, limitation periods for third-party claims, class action settlement disclosure rules, constructive dismissal damages, and vexatious litigant declarations. Each case summary includes detailed analysis of legal principles, procedural issues, and practical implications for practitioners.

The Ontario Court of Appeal's decision in Solmar Inc. v. Hall examines whether public-interest expression in municipal land-use disputes shields speakers from defamation claims when their statements contain...

A complex and challenging area of law is the intersection of trust law and family law. Ontario law, in contrast to many other common law jurisdictions, has given liberal treatment of a discretionary interest in a trust as property which can be subject to equalization under our family law legislation. See our prior blogs on this subject: Discretionary Trusts and Family Law Division: 50% of Zero is Still Zero (September 5, 2024) and Heads Up: Grappling with Family Law’s Treatment of Discretionary Trust Interests (January 6, 2015).

The Supreme Court of Canada has issued its first comprehensive statement on the doctrine of spoliation since 1896, in SS&C v. BNY Mellon, 2026 SCC 29 an appeal arising from a seventeen-year data-licensing dispute between a data provider (SS&C) and a global custodial bank (BNY Mellon).