In finding that the taxpayer and other corporations had been successful in creating a partnership through entering into an agreement that was styled a partnership agreement, Bastarache J. stated (at para. 21):
[I]t is necessary to examine the documents outlining the transaction to determine whether the parties have satisfied the requirements of creating the legal entity that it sought to create. The proper approach is that outlined in Orion Finance Ltd. v. Crown Financial Management Ltd., [1996] 2 B.C.L.C. 78 (C.A.), at p. 84:
...Once the documents are accepted as genuinely representing the transaction into which the parties have entered, its proper legal categorisation is a matter of construction of the documents. This does not mean that the terms which the parties have adopted are necessarily determinative. The substance of the parties’ agreement must be found in the language they have used; but the categorisation of a document is determined by the legal effect which it is intended to have, and if when properly construed the effect of the document as a whole is inconsistent with the terminology which the parties have used, then their ill-chosen language must yield to the substance.