Case information

Civil procedure ? Case management ? Self represented parties ? Appeals filed in Court of Québec against notices of assessment, accompanied by penalties, issued by Agence du revenu du Québec ? Non lawyer participating in submissions made in court ? Whether trial and appeal courts have duty to sanction, on their own initiative, active participation of person who is not practising lawyer in order to protect right of litigants to fair trial protected by s. 7 of Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Case summaries are prepared by the Office of the Registrar of the Supreme Court of Canada (Law Branch). Please note that summaries are not provided to the Judges of the Court. They are placed on the Court file and website for information purposes only.

The applicant spouses, Mr. Janvier and Ms. Pélissier, were the subject of a tax audit by the respondent, the Agence du revenu du Québec (ARQ), under an anti tax evasion program. The applicants jointly operated an intermediate resource for persons with intellectual disabilities and pervasive developmental disorders. They entered into a contract with the Centre de réadaptation en déficience intellectuelle et troubles envahissants de Montréal, from which they received a monthly payment for services rendered. As a result of the audit, the ARQ determined that the applicants had not reported the income derived from operating the intermediate resource, and it found significant discrepancies between the applicants’ lifestyle and their reported income. The ARQ adjusted the applicants’ taxable reported income and their business income, and assessed them and imposed penalties for the 2009, 2010 and 2011 taxation years. The applicants appealed the ARQ’s decision to the Court of Québec, which dismissed their respective appeals. The applicants, who were not represented by a lawyer in the Court of Québec, were apparently assisted by an adviser, Mr. Alcindor, who was not a member of the legal profession, both in the preparation of documents to contest the notices of assessment and during the court hearing. In the Court of Appeal, the lawyer newly retained by the applicants allegedly raised this situation, which he considered irregular, but did not include it in the appeal brief as a ground of appeal. The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeals. The applicants have applied for leave to appeal to the Supreme Court, asking that the Court of Appeal’s decision be set aside and that their cases be set down again for trial in the Court of Québec so that they can have a new trial that is fair.