In the late 1990s, the New Westminster diocese (‘territory’) of the Anglican Church of Canada (ACC) convened a synod (‘council’) in order to consider the question of whether clergy ought to bless same-sex unions. In 1998, the Diocese decided to permit, though not require, clergy to perform liturgical blessings for same-sex couples. In 2002, the [...]

Last month, the Federal Court of Appeal, in Antle v. Canada, 2010 FCA 280 [Antle 2010], upheld the Tax Court of Canada decision in Antle v. The Queen, 2009 TCC 465 [Antle 2009], finding that an offshore spousal trust was not valid. Both courts agreed that the primary purpose of the spousal trust was to [...]

The only surprising thing about the recent Supreme Court of Canada decision in Quebec (Revenue) v. Caisse populaire Desjardins de Montmagny, 2009 SCC 49, is that the Quebec Superior Court at first instance found in favour of the Crown in all three cases from which the appeals arose. The issue in C.P. Desjardins de Montmagny [...]

Offshore trusts have become an essential element of successful tax planning. Trusts are used as tax planning vehicles as they are considered a separate legal entity from the individual. Thus, the income and assets of the trust are excluded from the individual’s estate for tax purposes. A previously successful, but now uncertain, strategy had used [...]

Offshore trusts are major tax-planning and estate-planning tools which can be used to protect assets from taxation and to defer accrued capital gains for a long term. For all such planning tools to work, however, the “offshore” aspect of the trust—that is to say its non-Canadian residence—has to be a central feature of the structure. [...]

Earlier this year, the SCC concurrently released judgments in Madsen Estate v. Saylor (2007 SCC 18) and Pecore v. Pecore (2007 SCC 17), a pair of cases regarding the disposition of monies from joint bank and investment accounts shared by a parent with an adult child. Through these two cases, the SCC clarified the current [...]

In 1994, in the case of Schmidt v. Air Products Canada Ltd., (1994), 3 C.C.P.B. 1, [1994] 2 S.C.R. 611 (Schmidt), the Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) established a new direction for the law of pensions by holding that a pension trust is a classic trust, “subject to all applicable trust law principles.” Commentators at [...]