Words and Phrases - "proceedings"
Markevich v. Canada, 2003 DTC 5185, 2003 SCC 9, [2003] 1 S.C.R. 94
Section 32 of the Crown Liability and Proceedings Act applied to prohibit the taking of collection action against the taxpayer six years after a cause of action against him arose, namely, the expiry of the 90-day period after the mailing of a notice of assessment to him. There was no authority to support the proposition that the Income Tax Act was complete code that could not be informed by laws of general application such as s. 32, the ordinary meaning of the phrase "proceedings ... in respect of a cause of action" encompassed statutory collection procedures, and respecting arguments that the French word "poursuite" referred only to court proceedings, there was no reason to infer that Parliament intended for the application of section 32 to turn solely upon the technicality of whether the relevant proceedings took place in court.