KERWIN, J.:—The neat point for determination in these appeals is whether the sheets published by the respondents fall within the meaning of the word ‘‘newspapers’’ as used in Schedule III of the Special War Revenue Act. While the appellant seeks judgment for certain amounts for sales tax in various years, the provisions of the Act applicable may be taken to be sees. 85, 86 and 89 of R.S.C., 1927, ch. 179.
Sec. 85 (f) provides that in part XIII of the Act "producer or manufacturer’’ shall include "‘any printer, publisher, lithographer or engraver’’. By sec. 86, a consumption or sales tax is imposed on the sale price of all goods (a) produced or manufactured in Canada payable by the producer or manufacturer. Subsee. 1 of sec. 89 is as follows :—
4 The tax imposed by this Part shall not apply to the sale or importation of the articles mentioned in Schedule III of this Act.”’
Schedule III referred to, includes
" " newspapers and quarterly-monthly, bi-monthly and semimonthly magazines and weekly literary papers unbound.”
For some years the Montreal Stock Exchange and later the Exchange Printing Company printed, about noon of each day that the Exchange was in session, a sheet showing the transactions on the Exchange during the morning, and in the afternoon a similar record of the transactions for the remainder of the day. In like manner were published the transactions on the Montreal Curb market. Each week was printed a ‘‘comparative review of transactions’’ on the Exchange and a ‘‘comparative review of transactions’’ on the Curb.
These sheets from time to time contained notices of dividends, annual meetings and the loss of certificates, in connection with companies whose stock was listed on the Exchange. The weekly publications besides summaries of the week’s business, contained a tabulation comparing the business of that particular week with the business of the corresponding week in the previous year.
The members of the Exchange formed the greater bulk of the users of these sheets for which they paid on a sliding scale but copies were also exchanged with similar institutions in Canada and the United States. Some were sold to outsiders and the result of the evidence of the acting secretary-treasurer of the Exchange is that any member of the public might become a subscriber.
The term newspapers ” is not defined in the Act and while we were referred to various definitions in other Dominion and provincial statutes, the statement of the present Chief Justice, in delivering the judgment of the Court in Mun-Bingham Printing Co. Limited v. The King [1930] 8.C.R. 282 at p. 283 is peculiarly appropriate.
"The usage of that word in other statutes may be looked at, if the other statute happens to be in pari materia, but it is altogether a fallacy to suppose that because two statutes are in pari materia, a definition in one can be bodily transferred to the other. . . .’’
In the instant case, the word under discussion is not defined in any statute in pari materia and it remains only to give to it the ordinary meaning that it usually bears. Webster’s New International Dictionary may be taken as giving a definition of "newspaper’’ which is expressed in corresponding terms in other well recognized dictionaries :-—
4 ‘a paper printed and distributed at stated intervals . . . to convey news . . . and other matters of public interest.”
The sheets in question meet these requirements; the mere fact that any particular publication is meant to interest only a section of the public does not limit the meaning of the expression as a reference to religious or fraternal publications will at once make clear. The sheets in question contain not merely a record of transactions on the Exchange or curb market but also information to those desiring it as to such transactions ; and the other items from time to time included give ‘‘tidings, new information, fresh events reported,’’ (vide Concise Oxford Dictionary defining ‘‘news’’).
Being of opinion that the publications are newspapers for the purposes of the Special War Revenue Act, the respondents have brought themselves within the language of an exempting
proviso. Dominion Press Limited v. Minister of Customs and Excise [1928] A.C. 340.
The appeals will, therefore, be dismissed with costs.
Appeals dismissed.