Two months after their marriage, the taxpayer received (on January 8, 1993) from her husband (“CC”) the transfer of a property valued in excess of his subsequently assessed tax liabilities for various taxation years including his 1989 year. CRA also received a waiver for his 1989 year on the Monday immediately after the Sunday of the expiry of the normal reassessment period.
In finding that s. 26 of the Interpretation Act (which provided that “Where the time limited for the doing of a thing expires or falls on a holiday, the thing may be done on the day next following that is not a holiday”), did not have the effect of deeming the waiver to have been received during the normal reassessment period expiring on the Sunday, Owen J stated (at paras. 155-156):
The Respondent is relying on a rule the purpose of which is to relieve a person faced with a deadline to do something–such as object to or appeal from an assessment–from breaching that deadline because the deadline falls on a holiday.
A taxpayer filing a waiver is not facing a deadline that would preclude the taxpayer from doing anything. A waiver is valid
“only if”it is filed within the normal reassessment period. The deadline relates solely to the validity of the waiver itself, not to the doing of something by the person filing the waiver.