On June 21, 2018, the Ontario Court of Appeal handed down a decision in the case of Canada Life Insurance Company of Canada v. the Attorney General of Canada and Her Majesty the Queen in the Right of Ontario. This is a very troubling decision for taxpayers and their professional advisors. The facts are briefly as follows. The Canada Life Insurance Company of Canada (“CLICC”) and certain of its affiliates carried out a series of transactions and events in December 2007. The purpose of the transactions was to realize a tax loss to offset unrealized foreign exchange gains accrued in the same taxation year. The Canada Revenue Agency (the “CRA”) disallowed the claimed loss in the reassessment of CLICC’s taxes for 2007. Asserting that it had proceeded on the basis of erroneous advice from its tax advisor, CLICC applied to the courts for an order setting aside the transactions and replacing them with other steps retroactive to the date of the original transaction.

The problem arose because the tax loss was to be triggered by the winding up of a limited partnership. The mistake was that the general partner of the limited partnership, CLICC GP, was also wound up at the same time that the partnership was wound up. This resulted in the limited partner, CLICC, carrying on the business of the limited partnership alone within three months of the dissolution of the partnership.

CLICC originally applied for an order rectifying the transaction so as to move the winding-up of the general partnership from December 31, 2007 to April 30, 2008. The taxpayer was successful in its application before the application judge. However, the Attorney General appealed the decision. While the appeal was pending, the Supreme Court of Canada, in the case of the Fairmont Hotels,[1] overruled previous decisions which permitted rectification. The change in law restricted the scope of the equitable remedy of rectification to the correction of written agreements. Continue reading »