Executive summary: Key legal and evidentiary issues

• Groupe Immobilier Times Avenue Inc. challenged the Minister of National Revenue's refusal to exercise discretionary reassessment power under subparagraph 152(4)(a)(i) of the Income Tax Act for the 2016 tax year.

• The Minister's delegate provided two reasons for refusal: that subparagraph 152(4)(a)(i) cannot address a late-filed notice of objection, and that the misrepresentation of facts was not in the initial tax return.

• Both parties acknowledged before the Court that a late-filed objection is a relevant but not determinative factor in the exercise of the Minister's discretionary power.

• An unreasonable fetter on discretion was identified, as the delegate categorically ruled out exercising the power solely because of the late objection.

• The delegate's interpretation of the statutory provision was found to be unreasonable, since the law explicitly permits misrepresentation to be made "by supplying any information," not exclusively in the initial return.

• Remedial limitations prevented the Court from ordering a specific outcome, as the Vavilov framework requires remitting the matter to the administrative decision-maker except in exceptional circumstances.

Background and facts of the case

Groupe Immobilier Times Avenue Inc. (the "applicant") was assessed for its 2016 tax year. Following a series of events that the Court noted it was not necessary to describe in detail, the applicant was late in filing its notice of objection to the assessment, and the objection was deemed to be out of time. Having lost the opportunity to challenge the assessment through the normal objection process, the applicant asked the Minister of National Revenue (the "Minister") to exercise the power conferred by subparagraph 152(4)(a)(i) of the Income Tax Act to issue a reassessment.

The Minister's delegate's decision

A delegate of the Minister refused the applicant's request. The reasons provided were somewhat confusing but rested on two grounds. First, the delegate concluded that subparagraph 152(4)(a)(i) could not be used to address an opposition that had been filed out of time. Second, the delegate determined that the provision did not apply because "the misrepresentation of facts is not in the initial return." Dissatisfied with this refusal, the applicant brought a judicial review application before the Federal Court of Canada.

Proceedings before the Federal Court

At the hearing before Justice Sébastien Grammond in Montréal on April 8, 2026, the Minister conceded that the delegate's decision was unreasonable, though on narrower grounds than those advanced by the applicant. Counsel for the Minister acknowledged that failing to file a timely notice of objection is not, on its own, a determinative factor in the exercise of the Minister's discretionary power. The applicant's counsel similarly agreed that it was a relevant factor but not a determinative one.

The Court's analysis of reasonableness

Justice Grammond found the decision unreasonable on multiple grounds. The decision was found to be barely intelligible, making it difficult to discern its precise logic. More substantively, insofar as the delegate concluded that the discretionary power under subparagraph 152(4)(a)(i) can never be exercised when a taxpayer has not filed a timely notice of objection, this amounted to an unreasonable fetter on the exercise of a discretionary power. Furthermore, the delegate's second ground — that the misrepresentation must appear in the initial tax return — was unreasonable because the statutory provision explicitly states that a misrepresentation may be made "by supplying any information," which is not limited to the initial return alone.

The question of remedy

The applicant sought an order directing the Minister to issue a reassessment. The Minister argued that the decision should simply be annulled and the matter remitted for a fresh determination. Relying on the Supreme Court of Canada's guidance in Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration) v. Vavilov, 2019 SCC 65, at paragraphs 139 to 142, Justice Grammond noted that the standard remedy on judicial review is to send the matter back to the administrative decision-maker. The Court will only dictate a specific outcome in exceptional circumstances, namely when it is evident that only one decision would be reasonable in the circumstances. The applicant failed to persuade the Court that this was such a case, particularly since section 152(4) of the Act confers a discretionary power and because it appeared that not all of the facts relied upon by the applicant had been brought to the attention of the delegate of the Minister. The Court also declined the applicant's request to provide interpretive directives on section 152(4), noting, as in Canada (Citizenship and Immigration) v. Yansane, 2017 FCA 48 at paragraph 25, that the new decision-maker would need to take the judgment into account.

Ruling and outcome

The Federal Court granted the judicial review application, annulled the delegate's decision, and remitted the matter to a different delegate of the Minister for a new determination. Regarding costs, Justice Grammond characterized the outcome as one of shared success and ordered that each party bear its own costs. No specific monetary amount was awarded or ordered in favour of either party.