A transitional provision in the Act provided that the old s. 55(1) would apply to a transaction if it were "part of a series of transactions, determined without reference to subsection 248(10) of said Act, commencing before the day on which this Act is assented to and completed before 1989... ." The Minister argued that the exclusion of s. 248(10) did not automatically restrict "series of transactions" to mean only series that were pre-ordained. The Court disagreed. Evans J.A. stated (at para. 46):
It would only make sense to exclude subsection 248(10) - which is designed to include transactions otherwise excluded from the common law meaning of "series of transactions" because not pre-ordained - if the series of transactions had to be pre-ordained.