Yesterday, I was really steamed, as I reviewed the documents that we received from CRA under the access to information act. (ATIP) The auditor wrote that the working papers and audit notes were withheld because there is a current notice of objection in progress. That my friends … in my opinion … is an obstruction of justice.

ATIP does not stipulate that you can withhold any information… so I am going to protest. Withholding information on a matter that could go to court as according to the law – is an obstruction of justice.- and this current matter just may be going to court. …

This morning I read the following article, (included herein and below) which … while under a different act, shows that this kind of behavior is not seen as OK by the courts.

The following court ruling will also be very useful in dealing with CRA auditors who go to third parties and give out information damaging to the taxpayer.

Some days I do have hope for meaningful justice in this land, this is one of those days.

Yesterday I was in court, and experienced another form of justice from a tax judge and a different kind of justice for a lawyer representing CRA via the Department of Justice.

The behavior of the said lawyer who was so outrageous that his associate Lesley was visibly embarrassed. His verbal diatribe did little to leave a shred of respect to him. Our client was so angry at him that I am sure she had some unspeakable thoughts on the matter. The justice of the situation, was that I was right in my position in that the facts of the matter were confused and that the lawyer did not know what he was talking about, and had not read the file. His threat of going for costs… was shall we say … out of the mouths of idiots comes idiotic words, and it showed him as to what he really is. As Forest Gump said, “Stupid is as stupid does. It was a cool sort of natural justice to see that he made a fool of himself… I doubt that his client (CRA) would have been impressed.

On the other hand, the Judge was fair reasonable and honest. He gave us what we wanted in spite of the Department of Justice wanting Sine Die … (having the matter postponed indefinitely.) We get our access to justice in spite of the Department of Justice wanting to avoid it…. Interesting eh?

I don’t profess to be a lawyer, I am a Tax Representative who is interested in seeing that truth and justice applies for my clients. So when some lawyers drop their standards, it does little for the image of lawyers and creates images of charlatans. There are a lot of really good lawyers out there and I am sure they would not appreciate the discredit to their profession by the few really bad ones.

I confess, that I have my frustrations with CRA bureaucrats… and I am steamed over the obstruction of Justice in the matter of not giving us all the required documentation under the Access To Information Act.

Seeing the article today gives me renewed hope for change.

You can read more in the blog here and gain more insight from or on our web site…[1] just click here.

Dan White

The price of inaccuracy: Federal Court awards first damages for PIPEDA breach

This week, the Federal Court of Canada made its first damage award ever under the 10 year old Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA), awarding damages to a businessman in connection with the provision of inaccurate credit information by a credit reporting agency — despite a failure to prove actual losses arising from the breach.

While the quantum of the damages awarded in Nammo v. Transunion of Canada Inc., was a modest $5,000 plus costs, the case establishes several important principles respecting the interpretation of PIPEDA and the availability of damages for humiliation stemming from a violation of the Act.

The case concerned a businessman who sought a bank loan in order to launch a trucking business with a partner. The loan was rejected by the bank based on an inaccurate credit profile for the applicant, which subsequently was discovered to include the credit history of another individual with a different name, date of birth, Social Insurance Number and address history.

The case marks the Court’s first consideration of Clause 4.6 of Schedule 1 to the legislation, which requires that personal information held by an organization must be “as accurate, complete and up-to-date as is necessary for the purposes for which it is to be used.” Justice Zinn rejected the respondent’s argument that there is no breach of “the Accuracy Principle” where an organization responds adequately to correct inaccurate information after it is brought to its attention, finding that while such rectification may be a factor to consider in determining an appropriate remedy, it cannot be used as “an escape hatch” to avoid a finding of a breach of the principle itself. Justice Zinn similarly found that neither prior notification of inaccuracy, nor industry standard practices, nor commercial efficiency were relevant to assessing whether the Accuracy Principle had been breached.

In the first Federal Court damage award under s. 16 of PIPEDA, Justice Zinn awarded damages for humiliation for violation of the Accuracy Principle of the Act, finding “a serious breach involving financial information of high personal and professional importance.” It is noteworthy that damages were awarded despite little apparent evidence in this regard, with the judge finding that a reasonable person would have been humiliated by having their loan application turned down, having to convey to their business partner that their credit was “bad” and living with the taint of uncreditworthiness before their bank, in addition to undergoing the process to have the error corrected.

On the question of jurisdiction, Justice Zinn found that, while the Federal Court, on conducting a hearing de novo pursuant to s. 14 of PIPEDA, does not have jurisdiction to consider matters that were not complained of to the Privacy Commissioner of Canada in the complaint on which the rehearing is based, the Court’s jurisdiction is constrained only by the factual issues raised before the Privacy Commissioner, not by the particular clauses of the legislation considered by the Commissioner or her legal characterization of the factual issues raised.