T-401-89
462657 Ontario Limited, R & N Enterprises
(Windsor) Inc., R G R Associates Limited and
Raymond Quenneville (Applicants)
v.
Minister of National Revenue (Respondent)
INDEXED AS: 462657 ONTARIO LTD. V. M.N.R. (T.D.)
Trial Division, Strayer J.—Toronto, August 30;
Ottawa, September 6, 1989.
Income tax — Inquiries — Inquiry into financial affairs of
applicants under Act s. 231.4 — Individual applicant suspect
ed of tax evasion and false statements in income tax returns;
corporate applicants suspected of having received secret com
missions taxable in hands of individual applicant — Process
whereby applicants will be obliged to divulge information or
documents which could be used to incriminate applicants in
some future prosecution not violating Charter ss. 7 or 8 or Bill
of Rights s. 2(d).
Judicial review — Prerogative writs — Certiorari —
Whether inquiry into financial affairs of corporate and
individual applicants under Income Tax Act s. 231.4 for
suspected tax offences and subpoena duces tecum compelling
individual applicant to attend and give evidence at inquiry
contravening of Charter ss. 7 or 8 or Bill of Rights s. 2(d).
Constitutional law — Charter of Rights — Life, liberty and
security — Revenue Canada inquiry into financial affairs of
corporate and individual applicants and subpoena duces tecum
compelling individual applicant to attend and give evidence at
inquiry not contravening Charter s. 7 even though creating
possibility applicants will be obliged to divulge information or
documents which could be used to incriminate applicants in
future prosecution — S. 7 guarantees not applicable to corpo
rations — Protection argued for not one of basic tenets of our
legal system.
Constitutional law — Charter of Rights — Criminal process
— Search and seizure — Inquiry into suspected income tax
offences — Compulsion to produce documents as required by
subpoena duces tecum not amounting to unlawful search or
seizure within Charter s. 8.
Bill of Rights — Protection against self-incrimination —
Inquiry under Income Tax Act s. 231.4 into suspected income
tax offences — Whether process whereby applicants could be
obliged to divulge information and documents which could be
used to incriminate applicants in future prosecution violating
Bill of Rights s. 2(d) — No denial of protection against
self-incrimination as protection of Canada Evidence Act s.
5(2) and Charter s. 13 available — S. 2(d) protection appli-
cable to testimony, not to compulsion of other forms of
evidence such as production of documents.
In April 1988, the applicant, Quenneville, was suspected of
making false statements in income tax returns for the years
1983, 1984, 1985 and 1986 and wilful tax evasion for those
years. The corporate applicants were also suspected of having
received secret commissions within the meaning of section 383
of the Criminal Code, commissions which would be taxable
benefits in the hands of Quenneville.
An inquiry into the financial affairs of the applicants was
subsequently established by authorization of the Deputy Minis
ter of National Revenue under section 231.4 of the Income Tax
Act. In January 1989, the appointed hearing officer issued a
subpoena duces tecum to Quenneville requiring him to give
evidence on all matters within his knowledge relating to the
financial affairs of the corporate and individual applicants in
the present proceeding and to produce certain documents.
These are applications for writs of prohibition and/or certiorari
to quash both the inquiry and the subpoena, based on the belief
by Quenneville that a purpose of the inquiry is to obtain
information to support a prosecution against him.
The issues are: (1) whether these proceedings contravene
section 7 of the Charter by creating the possibility that the
applicants will be obliged to divulge information or documents
which could be used to incriminate them in some future
prosecution; (2) whether the compulsion to produce documents
as required in the subpoena duces tecum issued to Quenneville
amounts to an unlawful search or seizure within the meaning of
section 8 of the Charter; (3) whether the process violates
paragraph 2(d) of the Canadian Bill of Rights.
Held, the applications should be dismissed.
It is well established that the guarantees of section 7 do not
apply to corporations. And in this case, it does not even apply to
the applicant Quenneville. To find a procedural guarantee in
section 7, one must: first, be satisfied that the protection argued
for is one of the basic tenets of our legal system; and, second,
see if the specific definitions of rights as set out in sections 8 to
14 must by necessary implication be taken to have excluded
from the general language of section 7 other guarantees con
cerning essentially the same subject-matter.
First, it cannot be said that it is one of the basic tenets of our
legal system that oral evidence may not be compelled nor
documents demanded, whenever there is some possibility the
resulting information—whether obtained directly or as a result
of the original disclosures—might be used in some hypothetical
future criminal prosecution against the person who made them.
And the relevant guarantees found in paragraph 11(c) and
section 13 of the Charter do not apply herein. Paragraph 11(c)
is confined to persons already charged with an offence and the
section 13 protection against self-incrimination clearly contem
plates the legal permissibility of a person being obliged to
testify in one proceeding and thereby produce evidence which,
were it not for this section, could constitutionally be used in a
second proceeding. In any event, prohibition and certiorari at
this stage are premature: the inquiry has not started, no
You are being directed to the most recent version of the statute which may not be the version considered at the time of the judgment.