Through a holding company, the taxpayer held 37.5% of the shares of a corporation which granted him employee stock options ("Forages Garant"). A holding company whose shares were held as to 50% by his son and as to 25% by his wife (from whom he was legally separated) held 25% of the shares of Forages Garant. Accordingly, he was a member of a related group which controlled Forages Garant if he was related to his wife.
In finding that the taxpayer was so related, so that his subsequent surrender of stock options to Forages Garant did not represent an arm's length transaction, and in responding to a submission (at para. 30) that "in Quebec, marriage breakdown can take the form of a legal separation" (para. 30), Paris J stated (at paras. 42, 44, TaxInterpretations translation):
In Canada, a marriage is dissolved by divorce or by the death of one of the spouses. …Even if in practice a legal separation represents a definitive marriage breakdown, it does not, strictly speaking, break the marriage tie… .