series of transactions or events

Two brothers (the "Mazzoccas"), who constituted two of the three equal shareholders of a corporation ("Tri-M"), transferred their shares of Tri-M on a partial rollover basis to two holding companies and caused the two holding companies to purchase the shareholding of the third shareholder ("Manley").

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):

Each of the loans made to the taxpayer by her husband's company were for separate purposes, for example, financing her acquisition of an automobile, erection of a storage building, and acquisition of a coffee shop franchise. CRA assessed on the basis that the loan to finance the construction of the storage building should be included in her income under s. 15(2) and the subsequent repayment of that loan should be ignored.