The Minister applied for s. 231.7 compliance orders respecting CRA requests for various documents made pursuant to s. 231.1(1) (and s. 231.2(1)). In reversing the finding below that s. 231.1(1) did not authorize the compulsion of information, other than information contained in a document and in rejecting the appellants’ submission that, if in addition to s. 232.1(1), 231.1(1) also authorized the issuance of compulsory written demands requiring a person to provide information and documents, this would create operational incompatibility between the provisions, Roussel JA stated (at paras. 36-37):
The fact that the procedural requirements in section 231.2 are absent from section 231.1 does not establish a conflict. Given that subsection 231.2(1) allows the Minister to seek information from persons who are not part of the audit process (third-party record keepers), one can easily understand the requirement that notice be served on the person required to provide the information or documentation. …
The doctrine of paramountcy, as argued by the appellants, cannot be engaged in the absence of conflict between the two provisions.
Roussel JA also confirmed the finding below that “if the appellants wished to assert that the time afforded for compliance with the requirements was either objectively or subjectively unreasonable, they bore the burden of proof on that issue” (para. 48) and that such burden had not been met.
Roussel JA further found that “prior judicial authorization will only be required where the Minister seeks information relating to ascertainable unnamed persons with the intention that the information will be used to verify the unnamed persons’ compliance with their obligations under the ITA” (para. 59) whereas here, there was no reversible error in the Federal Court’s finding “that the evidence demonstrated that the Minister did not intend to investigate the tax compliance of the unnamed persons, but rather the tax compliance of the relevant appellants and other named entities” (para. 60).