Other/Conflicting Statutes

The accused argued that it was inappropriate for CRA to obtain a search warrant under s. 487 of the Criminal Code in respect of suspected offences under the Income Tax Act and Excise Tax Act, as both Acts have their own provisions for obtaining search warrants that (the accused argued) place more stringent requirements on obtaining a search warrant (ITA s. 231.3(1) and ETA s. 290).

Barrow J rejected this submission. The overriding of a general provision by a specific one occurs where the two provisions cannot "stand together," whereas here the provisions merely authorized warrants "somewhat differently" (para. 49).

The Court of Appeal applied (at para. 34) "the principle of the presumption of coherence between statutes" in finding that the due diligence defences under s. 227.1(3) of the Income Tax Act and s. 323(3) of the Excise Tax Act held a director to the same standard.

Before indicating that she chose not to rely on foreign cases cited to her, Sharlow J.A. stated:

"It is always interesting to learn how other countries approach the tax problems that may arise in any country. However, statutory context is inevitably somewhat different. For that reason, it is in my view preferable not to place too much reliance on foreign cases without reasonable assurance that all statutory distinctions are well understood."

Robertson J.A. applied the "presumption of coherence between statutes" (at p. 5414) to find that s. 227.1(3) should be interpreted similarly to the almost identically-worded s. 122(1)(b) of the Canada Business Corporations Act.