Supreme Court of Canada
Croydon Management Corporation v. Deputy Minister of Revenue of the Province of Quebec, [1970] S.C.R. 308
Date: 1969-11-25
Croydon Management Corporation (Defendant) Appellant;
and
The Deputy Minister of Revenue of the Province of Quebec (Plaintiff) Respondent.
1969: November 24, 25; 1969: November 25.
Present: Fauteux, Abbott, Martland, Ritchie and Spence JJ.
ON APPEAL FROM THE COURT OF QUEEN’S BENCH, APPEAL SIDE, PROVINCE OF QUEBEC
Taxation—Retail sales tax—Building materials incorporated by builder into houses for resale—Retail Sales Tax Act, R.S.Q. 1964, c. 71, s. 2(10).
The defendant carries on the business of building and selling houses, and the building materials which it buys for this purpose are used in the building of these houses. The plaintiff claims that the sales tax imposed on these materials, the separate identity of which is entirely destroyed in the process, are payable by the defendant, because the sales of these materials bought by the defendant are retail sales as defined in the Retail Sales Tax Act, R.S.Q. 1964, c. 71. The Superior Court maintained the action, and its judgment was affirmed by the Court of Appeal. The defendant appealed to this Court.
Held: The appeal should be dismissed.
APPEAL from a judgment of the Court of Queen’s Bench, Appeal Side, province of Quebec, affirming a judgment of the Superior Court. Appeal dismissed.
C. Antoine Geoffrion, Q.C., and Jean-Claude Pothier, for the defendant, appellant.
Claude Desaulniers and Walter Guillery, Q.C., for the plaintiff, respondent.
At the conclusion of the argument of counsel for the appellant, the following judgment was delivered:
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FAUTEUX J. (orally for the Court)—The appellant is a company carrying on the business of building and selling houses and, for these purposes, buys building materials from various traders and incorporates these materials in houses which are then sold. All the building materials for which a retail sale tax is claimed by respondent in this case were bought by appellant to be used and were used and incorporated by appellant in the homes built for resale and the homes in question have been sold by appellant.
The issue is whether sales of building materials bought by appellant company to be incorporated into houses sold or to be sold by it and their separate identity entirely destroyed in the process are retail sales as defined in the Retail Sales Tax Act, R.S.Q. 1964, c. 71, and whether sales taxes imposed thereon are accordingly payable by appellant.
A similar question arose in Cairns Construction Limited v. The Government of Saskatchewan[1] and, in the light of a statute substantially similar, an affirmative answer was given, as it appears in the reasons for judgment delivered for this Court by Mr. Justice Martland.
In Ruco Enterprises Inc. v. Shink, Lico Investments Ltd. v. Shink, Maron Construction Corporation v. Shink[2], the Court of Appeal for the Province of Quebec, composed of Tremblay C.J., Pratte, Casey, Montgomery and Rivard JJ., relying particularly on the decision of this Court in Cairns Construction Limited, supra, also gave an affirmative answer to a like question.
On a consideration of the facts of the present case, in the light of the relevant provisions of the Retail Sales Tax Act, supra, we are unable to
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reach a view different than that reached by this Court in Cairns Construction Limited, supra. We are all in agreement with the reasons for judgment delivered in the three cases mentioned above and the reasons of the Court of Appeal in this case.
The appeal is dismissed with costs.
Appeal dismissed with costs.
Solicitors for the defendant, appellant: Geoffrion & Prud’homme, Montreal.
Solicitor for the plaintiff, respondent: C. Desaulniers, Montreal.