Renovation costs incurred on a residential rental property, including new doors, windows and siding, were of a capital nature given that they were incurred before any tenant rented the property. Hershfield J reasoned (at TCC para. 59) that the expenses "strike me as having been incurred, foreseen or not, as part of the process of acquiring the properties." He suggested (at para. 66) that renovations are more likely to be on current account where they are "undertaken to make the property suitable for normal use again by the same owner."
In affirming Hershfield J's findings (principally by deferring to his findings of fact), Blais CJ noted he was correct in evaluating the series of repairs collectively, rather than item-by-item.