Shaw v. The Queen, 2007 TCC 148, an informal procedure decision of the Tax Court, considered the meaning of “written agreement” as found in the provisions of the Income Tax Act governing the deductibility of support.
The Court wrote:
I note that a signature, if required, need not be on the written agreement itself as long as it can be referred back or joined to it. It is clear from a wealth of jurisprudence (going back in Canada at least to the Supreme Court of Canada decision in O’Donohoe v. Stammers[4]) that a contract need not be in a single document or in any particular form. It may be constructed from separate but connected writings; signed and unsigned documents may be read together; and, oral testimony may be admitted to show the connection between the documents where that connection could be found as a matter of fair and reasonable inference.
The Court concluded that, while a 1998 agreement between the parties was unsigned, it still constituted a “written agreement” because the husband had written cheques that referred back to the agreement, the wife had deposited the cheques and she had acknowledged in writing that the cheques had been received pursuant to the agreement.
