Dec. 16, 2019
Professor cited in recent Supreme Court decision
The case involved British Columbia Investment Management Corporation (BCI), a Crown corporation owned by the British Columbia government. BCI managed and invested pension and other money for several public-sector organizations. The federal government collected GST under the Excise Tax Act. BCI didn’t charge direct fees for some of its investment services. Instead, it took some of the profits from those investments to cover the costs of its services. It didn’t charge GST.
BCI asked a British Columbia court to legally declare that it didn’t have to pay federal taxes. The BC court decided the federal government couldn’t force BCI to pay under the Excise Tax Act. But the court also said that BCI still had to pay because of BC’s agreements with the federal government. The Court of Appeal agreed.
Nigel's article “Co‑operative Federalism: Third Parties and Intergovernmental Agreements and Arrangements in Canada and Australia” (1991), 29 Alta. L. Rev. 792, was cited in the decision by the Supreme Court.