The taxpayer was a licensed operator of foster homes and group homes through which it provided care for children with serious behavioural and developmental disorders. The Court found no basis for overturning the trial judge's finding that the taxpayer's youth workers and area supervisors were employees rather than independent contractors, and hence had pensionable employment under the Canada Pension Plan and insurable employment under the Employment Insurance Act.
Although each contract clearly indicated contractual work on its face (e.g. "nothing in this agreement shall be construed so as to restrict in any way the freedom of the Independent Contractor(s) to conduct any other business or activity for his/her individual profit"), the trial judge's findings supported the conclusion that the work was practically indistinguishable from employment - for example, workers had no ability to increase their income by cutting costs or producing more, nor did they control the hours they worked.
Mainville JA also stated (at paras. 39-40):
In this case, the Tax Court Judge appears to have proceeded in an inverse order, dealing with the parties' intent as set out in their mutual contracts at the end of his analysis. The first step of the analysis should always be to determine at the outset the intent of the parties and then, using the prism of that intent, determining in a second step whether the parties' relationship, as reflected in objective reality, is one of employer-employee or of independent contractor.
However, the incorrect ordering of the trial judge's analysis was not enough to shake his conclusions.