Cases
The Queen v. Markevich, 2003 DTC 5185, 2003 SCC 9
The Court applied (at p. 5192) the principle that "in determining the legislative intent behind the current wording in s. 32, it is useful to examine the judicial interpretation given to the provision that came before it."
Bank of Nova Scotia v. Deputy Attorney General of Canada, 92 DTC 6313 (Ont. Ct. (G.D.))
After noting that when Parliament amended what now is s. 232(1)(e) without altering the wording of the portion of that definition which had been commented upon in Deputy Attorney General of Canada v. Brown, [1965] S.C.R. 84, Mandel J. then noted that he was fortified in the conclusion he already had reached by the presumption found in Ex Parte Campbell, L.R. 5 Ch. App. 703 at 706 that:
"'Where once certain words in an Act of Parliament have received a judicial construction in one of the Superior Courts, and the Legislature has repeated them without any alteration in a subsequent statute, I conceive that the Legislature must be taken to have used them according to the meaning which a Court of competent jurisdiction has given to them.'"
Glynn v. C.I.R. (Hong Kong), [1990] BTC 129 (PC)
In interpreting the word "perquisite" found in the Inland Revenue Ordinance (Hong Kong), Lord Templeman applied the "logical and sensible principle that expressions employed in British legislation and authorities on the meaning of such expressions are of assistance in construing identical expressions in Hong Kong legislation concerned with the same subject matter."
The Queen v. Taylor, 84 DTC 6459, [1984] C.T.C 436 (FCTD)
The enactment of s. 163(3) of the Act did not alter the interpretation which prior cases had held should be accorded to s. 152(8).
Edwards v. Clinch, [1982] A.C. 845, [1982] BTC 109 (HL)
It was found that the legislature, in continuing to use the undefined word "office" in successive versions of the statute without a corrective definition, "showed a general intention to adopt the judicial interpretation of it." (Lord Wilberforce)
Seven Mile Dam Contractors v. The Queen in Right of British Columbia (1980), 116 DLR (3d) 398, 1980 CanLII 451 (BCCA)
Before going on to find that the definition in the Interpretation Act (BC) of a "person" as including partnership did not override the common law of partnerships that the partners of a partnership had an interest in the partnership property, Hutcheon J.A. stated (at p. 401) that "there is a rule of construction of statutes that new principles are not to be introduced into any branch of the law except by clear language."