Time out

Joel Nitikman, in “Just the Fax Ma’am: A day late and a dollar short? A comment on Popovich” Tax Topics No 2074 (May 7, 2024), discusses in some detail Popovich v R, 2024 TCC 44, which analyzes the rules for the computation of deadlines for objecting and appealing assessments. Popovich followed Refind Environment Inc. v R, 2024 TCC 2, which is another case on the same subject.

Logic side note: in Popovich, the judge considered section 4.2 of the Tax Court of Canada Rules (Informal Procedure), which provides as follows:

4.2 Except as otherwise provided in these Rules and unless otherwise directed by the Court, the date of filing a
document is deemed to be

(a) in the case of a document filed with the Registry or sent by mail or by fax, the date shown by the date received stamp placed on the document by the Registry at the time it is received; or

(b) in the case of a document filed by electronic filing, the date shown on the acknowledgement of receipt issued by the Court.

The judge, at para 23, held that, in respect of the preamble in 4.2, because the Rules do not provide for any exceptions to (a) and (b) above, he was prevented from directing otherwise. The judge believed that the “and” in the condition was binding on him somehow.

This is a logical error, however. 4.2(a) and (b) apply if the condition in the preamble is satisfied (ie it is true), but it does not follow that, if the condition is not satisfied, then it must be the case that the judge did not (could not?) direct otherwise. To see this, let the preamble condition be represented symbolically as follows:

~R & ~D

where

R is the existence of a rule that provides otherwise, and

D is the judge directing otherwise.

The truth table for that expression is as follows:

The second-last line is instructive because it shows that judge could direct otherwise, the preamble condition would not be satisfied AND 4.2(a) and (b) would not apply. That’s all that would have happened if the judge had directed otherwise.