Gerard Blais (Applicant)
v.
Honourable Robert Andras (Respondent)
Court of Appeal, Thurlow and Pratte JJ., and
Choquette D.J.—Ottawa, February 19 and 20,
1973.
Judicial review—Bankruptcy—Superintendent reporting
adversely on trustee—Minister restricting trustee's licence—
Trustee not informed of prejudicial matter—Failure of natu
ral justice— Decision set aside.
Following a report by the Superintendent of Bankruptcy
on the conduct of a licensed trustee in bankruptcy the
Minister restricted the trustee's licence to the administration
of estates then in his hands. The trustee attacked that
restriction by a proceeding under section 28 of the Federal
Court Act.
Held, as the reports upon which the Minister acted were
not made available to the trustee, and as they contained
prejudicial matter not set out in the letter by which the
trustee was invited to make representations, there had been
a failure to observe a principle of natural justice, and the
Minister's decision must accordingly be set aside.
JUDICIAL review.
COUNSEL:
Pierre Lamontagne for applicant.
Robert Cousineau for respondent.
SOLICITORS:
Laing, Weldon, Clarkson, Parson, Gonthier
and Tétrault, Montreal, for applicant.
Deputy Attorney General of Canada for
respondent.
The judgment of the Court was delivered by
THURLOW J. (orally)—This proceeding began
as an application under section 28 of the Feder
al Court Act to review and set aside a decision
made on June 9, 1972 by which the respondent
as Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs
refused to remove a restriction on the appli
cant's licence to act as a trustee under the
Bankruptcy Act for the year 1972. The appli
cant's licence for the year 1972 has expired but
counsel are in agreement that the same restric
tion has been imposed, without further hearing,
on his licence for the year 1973 for the reasons
which appear in the decision under attack and
have requested the Court to deal with the deci
sion as if it referred to the 1973 licence on the
basis that the circumstances affecting the validi
ty of the decision with respect to the 1973
licence are the same as applied in the case of
the 1972 licence.
In our view the "faits consignés aux dossiers"
referred to in the third paragraph of the decision
under attack as part of the material attentively
studied in reaching the decision must be regard
ed as including the allegations of facts, the
allegations of admissions by the applicant and
of opportunities to explain his conduct and the
interpretations of facts contained in the five
reports made by the Superintendent in Bank
ruptcy to the Minister dated September 8, 1967,
September 12, 1967, February 12, 1968, March
12, 1968 and March 21, 1968 respectively,
many of which allegations and interpretations
are prejudicial to the applicant. As these reports
were not made available to the applicant prior to
the making of the decision in question, (he was
not even aware of the existence of the last four
of them until some time after the commence
ment of this application) and as they contain
prejudicial matter not set out in the Deputy
Minister's letter of May 10, 1972, by which the
applicant was invited to make representations
with respect to some of the items referred to in
them, we are all of the opinion that a failure to
observe a principle of natural justice has
occurred in the proceeding leading to the deci
sion in question and that it should not be
allowed to stand. The decision will therefore be
set aside and the matter of the restriction on the
applicant's 1973 licence will be referred to the
Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs for
determination after an opportunity has been
afforded to the applicant to answer all such
allegations as are to be considered in reaching a
decision as to whether such restrictions should
be imposed or maintained.
You are being directed to the most recent version of the statute which may not be the version considered at the time of the judgment.