Case information

Administrative law — Natural Justice — Reasonable apprehension of bias — Right to an oral hearing — Taxpayers claiming Tax Appeal Commission and its chief commissioner exhibited reasonable apprehension of bias and that procedural justice required an oral hearing because there were questions of credibility at issue — Taxpayers’ appeal dismissed — Whether the Court of Appeal erred in giving deference to the lower court and concluding that no reasonable apprehension of bias existed — Whether the Court of Appeal’s decision enables quasi-judicial bodies to ignore the importance of natural justice in their operations.

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 applicants were in business together, operating hair salons in Winnipeg. They formed three separate partnerships to operate three hair salons; each partnership consisted of the four applicants as equal partners with a 25 per cent ownership interest each. The applicants were issued tax assessments on the basis that the respondent deemed them to be a single employer under a provision of The Health and Post Secondary Education Tax Levy Act, C.C.S.M., c. H24. The applicants appealed the assessments to the Tax Appeals Commission. The chief commissioner of the Tax Appeals Commission affirmed the tax assessments. The Court of Queen’s Bench (as it then was) affirmed that decision. The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal. It saw no reason to interfere with the Court of Queen’s Bench conclusion that a reasonable apprehension of institutional or specific bias was not established in this case. It also agreed with the Court of Queen’s Bench that the Tax Appeal Commission’s decision did not rest on credibility assessments or contested facts and that procedural fairness therefore did not require an oral hearing.