Décary J.A.:
1 We are all of the view that these three consolidated applications for judicial review cannot succeed. The following set of reasons shall apply to all. A copy of these reasons will be filed in each of the applicant's records. The applicant argues essentially that it did not receive a fair hearing in the Tax Court of Canada when its appeals against decisions of the Minister of National Revenue (“the Minister”) pertaining to the employee/independent contractor status of its workers were all dismissed except for one.
2 We do not agree. First, the Tax Court Judge properly exercised his discretion when he denied a motion for adjournment. An adjournment had already been granted once and the applicant clearly failed to give any explanation with respect to the relevance of the documents it claimed were not yet in its possession, because of the Minister's failure to comply with its application under the Access to Information Act.
3 Second, the Tax Court Judge did at no point act unfairly towards the applicant. We have read the transcript in its entirety and are satisfied that the Tax Court Judge behaved throughout with the patience and openness of mind expected from a Trial Judge. We are dealing here with the informal procedure. Section 18.15(4) of the Tax Court of Canada Act[FN1: <p>R.S.C. 1985, c. T-2, as amended by R.S.C. 1985 (4th Supp.), c. 51, s. 5.</p>] which, pursuant to Section 18.29(1)(b), applies to appeals arising under Part III of the Unemployment Insurance Act, provides the following:
18.15[...]
(4) Notwithstanding the provisions of the Act out of which an appeal arises, the Court, in hearing an appeal referred to in section 18, is not bound by any legal or technical rules of evidence in conducting a hearing for the purposes of that Act, and all appeals referred to in section 18 shall be dealt with by the Court as informally and expeditiously as the circumstances and considerations of fairness permit.
4 In the case at bar, the applicant chose to be represented not by counsel, but by its president, Ms Morgan. Cases where the same person is acting in a dual capacity — as representative and as witness — are not easy to manage: the Court must more often than not remind the representative of the distinction between evidence and argumentation and insist that she not ask leading questions from her own witnesses. The representative who is not familiar with the Court system may well experience some confusion and some frustration, but this may be the price to be paid by a litigant for failing to retain counsel. Judges do their best to accommodate litigants who act for themselves, but these litigants are expected to fully cooperate with the Court and to abide by the general rules of conduct and procedure, however informal they may be, imposed on counsel. In circumstances as the present ones, the Court will almost inevitably make rulings whose normality will escape the uniniated but which are nevertheless sound, just and fair.
5 The applicant, in our view, was treated fairly by the Tax Court Judge.
6 The applications for judicial review must therefore be dismissed.
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