After quoting commentary that "'it would introduce intolerable uncertainty into the Income Tax Act if clear language and a detailed provision of the Act were to be qualified by unexpressed exceptions derived from a court's view of the object and purpose of the provision", Iacobucci J. stated (at para. 51):
This is not an endorsement of a literalist approach to statutory interpretation, but a recognition that in applying the principles of interpretation to the Act, attention must be paid to the fact that the Act is one of the most detailed, complex, and comprehensive statutes in our legislative inventory and courts should be reluctant to embrace unexpressed notions of policy or principle in the guise of statutory interpretation.