The appellant (MELP) was found to be performing its services to Canadian patients who underwent bariatric surgery at the surgical unit in Mexico of a Mexican company (“LIMARP”) as agent for LIMARP given that their conduct - including MELP being subject to control over health-related matters by LIMARP, and being implicitly authorized to deal with the patients before and after the operation, and MELP quite regularly remitting the fees that it collected from the Canadian patients, other than the 50% portion thereof retained by it for its services, to LIMARP – implied an agency arrangement. Accordingly, MELP was not subject to GST/HST on the ½ portion of the patient fees that it collected as agent for LIMARP.
However, its own fees collected (by deduction from its remittances) from LIMARP were not zero-rated under s. VI-V-5 given that that the services which MELP performed on behalf of LIMARP (including a wide range of various pre-operation and post-operation services such as finding and screening surgery candidates, compiling patient information, monitoring the pre-operative diet and various post-operative follow-up consulting and monitoring) were in significant part performed in Canada. Thus (and keeping in mind, per para. 93, that "'the actions of the agent are those of the principal'"), services performed by LIMARP through its agent were performed in part in Canada, so that their place of supply was deemed under s. 142(1)(g) to be in Canada, contrary to the requirements of s. VI-V-5(b) (and, for similar reasons, neither s. 142(2)(g) or 143 deemed the place of supply to be outside Canada.)