In successive years, the taxpayer cash-surrendered employee stock options to the corporation ("Forages Garant") which had granted the options. Paris J found that the taxpayer was related to his wife from whom he was legally separated but not divorced. Accordingly, he was a member of a related group which controlled Forages Garant, which meant that his stock option surrender benefits were not taxable under s. 7(1)(b).
In rejecting a Crown submission that the option surrender benefits were taxable under s. 6(1)(a), Paris J stated (at para 77, TaxInterpretations translation) that "the principle of generalibus specialia derogant applies and subsection 7(3) deflects the application of the general provision," that the provisions of s. 7(3)(a) "are clear and unequivocal" (para. 79) and that "it is evident that the [subsequent] addition of paragraph 7(1)(b.1) effected a change to section 7 and not a clarification" (para. 85). Accordingly, the benefits were not taxable.