Essentially the appellant's only activity was to indirectly finance the mineral exploration activities of six Polish subsidiaries of its immediate wholly-owned Luxembourg subsidiary ("Luxco") by lending funds (raised through private placements) to Luxco, with such loans being converted to mandatorily redeemable preferred shares at the end of each year. The appellant had no employees or premises of its own, but was charged fees for consulting services provided by its executives and consultants as well as being charged for professional and other incidental services.
After noting the broad construction given to the phrase "in relation to" in Stantec, and in finding that the appellant was entitled to full input tax credits for GST on these charges, Paris J stated (at para. 35):
[E]verything Miedzi does can be said to be done in relation to the shares or indebtedness of Luxco. Therefore, there is a clear nexus between the administrative, management and legal services in issue and the shares or indebtedness of Luxco.
He stated (at para. 36) his agreement with the appellant's submission (at para.18) that:
Parliament intended subsection 186(1) to be applied as a look-through rule to allow a holding company to claim ITCs that the underlying corporation could have claimed if it incurred the costs of the services or property directly.