Abdalla – Tax Court of Canada finds that a “poorly worded” CRA-drafted waiver nonetheless was good enough to effect a valid waiver of appeal rights when signed

In rejecting taxpayers’ submissions that they had not given valid waivers of their right to appeal, Rossiter CJ quoted the statement in Saskatchewan River Bungalows, [1994] 2 SCR 490 that:

Waiver will be found only where the evidence demonstrates that the party waiving had (1) a full knowledge of rights; and (2) an unequivocal and conscious intention to abandon them.

In finding that this test was satisfied here, he stated that although the waiver letter drafted by CRA was “poorly worded … if read in its entirety … there is a sufficient and adequate explanation in the letter [such] that a person would have full knowledge of the rights being waived.”

Neal Armstrong. Summary of Abdalla v. The Queen, 2017 TCC 222 under s. 169(2.2).