The taxpayer was owned by its sole employee ("Muirhead") and his wife, and provided well inspection services to an arm's length corporation ("Harvest") under a services contract with it.
The taxpayer had a personal services business – but for the services contract, Muirhead would have been a Harvest employee. Muirhead had regular work shifts charged out at an hourly rate, and the taxpayer's provision of equipment (a truck that Muirhead also used outside of the job, personal tools, and flame-retardant clothing, but not key specialized tools) was not beyond what might reasonably be expected of an employee. Harvest was the only client, and Muirhead the only employee. Respecting the taxpayer's right to an overtime rate of an additional $17 per hour, Boyle J stated (at para. 31) that instead "clients and customers of a business normally seek to negotiate volume discounts, not volume surcharges."
The intentions of the parties to the services contract were irrelevant "as the personal services business provisions would be meaningless if the intention of the third party purchaser of the services (Harvest) and the individual's corporation ... in entering into their contract governed, as that contract can only be a contract for services" (para. 7).