The appellant ("Sun Life"), whose principal business was the sale of financial products, subleased space in its various office buildings to independent contractors who also sold Sun Life financial products, at rents that also were intended to capture costs of the building common areas. The floor space of a building set aside for use of such "advisers" (including unoccupied space that was allocated for future recruits) was grossed up for a pro rata share of common areas (principally, jointly used spaces such as meeting rooms, internal corridors and hallways, and building common areas attributed to Sun Life by the building owner), and the total so allocated to the advisers was divided by the total area under lease to determine the proportion of the rents paid by Sun Life on which it claimed ITCs.
Owen J allowed Sun Life's ITC claims in full, finding its allocation method to be fair and reasonable (noting, at para. 40, that "there may be more than one method that is fair and reasonable.") The Minister argued that, even to the extent that the common spaces (such as meeting rooms) were being used by the advisers, they were being used in furtherance of the appellant's provision of financial services. Owen J stated (at para. 48) that "this argument fails to recognize that the Advisers are independent contractors and that their use of the subleased space is in furtherance of their own business objectives," noted (at para. 49) "that the Advisers cannot use the subleased space without also using the common-use space," and (at para. 50) that "the direct purpose of the available space was to rent the space to Advisers", which was relevant rather than "the indirect (or ultimate) purpose of having space available … to facilitate the sale of Financial Products."
Likewise, Owen J found (at para. 54) that, absent a sham, "the amount of vacant space that is required for rental to Advisers is a business judgment best left to Sun Life... ."