I think there's a fundamental difference between when the Canada Revenue Agency talks about the object and spirit or the intention of the legislation versus the letter of the law itself. Canada has introduced what is known as the general anti-avoidance rule.
I'm familiar with the case you're speaking of. That particular situation involved somebody who wanted to set up an offshore trust in Barbados. That case introduced a very new concept to Canadian tax law, which is a corporation is resident either where it's incorporated, or where its mind and management is. That particular case, the Garron case, decided a trust can be resident where its mind and management is. I don't think that's the situation whereby the court looked at the object and spirit of the legislation. I think they took a concept under corporate tax law and applied it to a trust.
Canada did introduce the general anti-avoidance rule, which does say that a transaction can be re-characterized by the Minister of National Revenue to achieve a tax result as is reasonable in the circumstances if the avoidance transaction was an abuse or misuse of the act. The GAAR is probably 10 or 15 years old, and there are some cases now at the Supreme Court level that have looked exactly at what is a misuse and abuse.