Paris J rejected CRA arguments that independent contractors who provided personal care services to a B.C. for-profit residential care home, including assistance with bathing, dressing, grooming, feeding, and incontinence management, were not thereby providing a (GST-exempt) "homemaker service," which was defined to mean "a household or personal service, such as cleaning, laundering, meal preparation and child care, that is rendered to an individual who, due to age, infirmity or disability, requires assistance." He stated (at paras. 46-47):
The use of specific examples after a general term in legislation does not restrict the meaning of the general term to cases similar to the specific examples. Rather, the presumption is that, in using the specific examples, Parliament intended to extend the meaning of the general term to things that would ordinarily have been seen as not falling within the general term. …
[T]he noscitur a sociis rule is inapplicable in this case because it is normally applied when interpreting terms in a list: R. v. Daoust, 2004 SCC 6 at paragraph 60. Here, the words "personal service" are general words that are part of the term "household or personal service" which is followed by a list of examples.