Canada v. Wetzel, 2006 DTC 6189, 2006 FCA 103 -- summary under Subsection 15(1)

The Tax Court erred in considering the taxpayer's claim that his section 15 Charter rights had been violated when officials at the Department of Indian Affairs caused an order-in-council to be issued that specified that members of an Indian band had to be of Canadian ancestry (the taxpayer being of American ancestry) in the absence of notice being given by the taxpayer under subsection 19.2(1) of the Tax Court of Canada Act that he was raising an issue as to the constitutional operability of a regulation. The impugned conduct by the officials represented a breach of proper conduct under administrative law rather than representing differential treatment based on the taxpayer's personal characteristic and, therefore, did not represent a Charter violation.