Context

The Court rejected the taxpayer's argument that the reference in s. 56(1)(a)(i) to pension benefits "received" referred to benefits "constructively received," and that taxpayer was consequently entitled to allocate portions of a lump sum pension payment to earlier taxation years. If that argument were correct, then there would have been no need to enact s. 110.2 (allowing a deduction for prior years' accruals) and s. 120.31 (dealing with "notional tax payable" in prior years).

Stratas J.A. stated (at para. 12):

...the appellant's position runs contrary to the evident and coherent scheme of the Act.

After finding that the 40 kilometer distance referred to in s. 62(1) of the Act should be measured on the basis of the shortest normal route to the traveling public, Marceau J.A. stated (at p. 5479):

"... by applying the straight line rule to the calculation of the distance referred to in subsection 62(1) of the Act, the Tax Court of Canada has interpreted the word without regard to the context and, in so doing, had committed an error of law ... ."

MacGuigan J.A. applied the "words-in-total-context approach" in finding that because Puerto Rico was a country for purposes of Regulations 5907(10)(b) and (c), it also should be considered to be a country for purposes of Regulation 5907(10)(a).

It was found that in s. 68, a "potential ambiguity is resolved with reference to the other words of the section, which must be given meaning".

In finding that the taxpayer had "received" investment tax credits for purposes of the pre-1978 version of s. 13(7.1), Mahoney J.A. stated:

"Parliament has expressly contemplated that a taxpayer may 'receive' assistance from a government in the form of a 'deduction from tax'. Whatever violence that does to one's semantic scrupulosity, the Court is obliged to give effect to Parliament's clear and unambiguous intention if it can sensibly do so. The concept may be thought awkward, but it is clearly expressed."

An unsuccessful argument was made that a crematorium qualified as a building in use for the subjection of goods or materials to any process (i.e., the burning of bodies). Stamp J. stated:

"I protest against subjecting the English language, and more particularly a simple English phrase, to this kind of process of philology and semasiology. English words derive colour from those which surround them. Sentences are not mere collections of words to be taken out of the sentence, defined separately by reference to the dictionary or decided cases, and then put back again into the sentence with the meaning which one has assigned to them as separate words, so as to give the sentence or phrase a meaning which as a sentence or phrase it cannot bear without distortion of the English language."