The taxpayer was a bank which also was the landlord of the Royal Bank Centre in Toronto. In that capacity, it operated emergency electricity generators at the buildings for approximately 100 hours per year (consisting of 50 hours of testing and 50 hours of power interruption). In accepting the taxpayer's submission that the taxpayer's purchases of generators were exempt from sales tax under the Excise Tax Act as "machinery and apparatus sold to...manufacturers or producers for use by them directly in...the manufacture or production of goods," McIntyre J state (at pp. 143-4):
There is no definition of manufacturing or manufacture in the Act, but I accept a definition given by Spence J. in R. v. York Marble, Tile and Terrazzo Ltd...where he said, at p. 145:
For the present purposes, I wish to note and to adopt one of the definitions cited by the learned judge, [Archambault J. in Minister of National Revenue v. Dominion Shuttle Company Limited (1933), 72 Que. S.C. 15] i.e., that “manufacture is the production of articles for use from raw or prepared material by giving to these materials new forms, qualities and properties or combinations whether by hand or machinery”.
...I conclude that the appellant is performing the act of manufacturing electricity by the use of the generators... .