Welcome to Cases That Should Have Gone to the Supreme Court of Canada, But Didn’t! This week, lawyer Kyla Lee discusses courts v. administrative tribunals.
Acumen Law Corporation lawyer Kyla Lee gives her take on a made-in-Canada court case each week and discusses why these cases should have been heard by Canada’s highest court: the Supreme Court of Canada.
In all of the provinces across Canada, disputes about tenancy agreements are supposed to be done by way of a residential tenancy tribunal. In the case of Armand Letestu, he, unfortunately, did not care for the way the residential tenancy branch did things and did not care to participate in their scheme. Mr. Letestu felt that his disputes were outside of what the residential tenancy branch would allow him to dispute. Letestu decided to bring his application in the first instance, to the Superior Court of the province and because of this decision, he risked having his action thrown out because he didn’t engage the jurisdiction of the tribunal in the first place.
Mr. Letestu’s claim was rejected, he appealed, he was rejected at the appeal level and he sought leave from the Supreme Court of Canada which was dismissed.
This case raises the issue if you can’t get a remedy from a tribunal, and you know they can’t do it, why would you waste your time, money and resources of the tribunal trying to get that remedy?
The Supreme Court of Canada had the opportunity to say “yes, you can resort to the court when the tribunal can’t do anything for you”. Unfortunately, the Supreme Court left this in a situation for people who are facing a tribunal that can’t give them the relief they need because it’s outside of the tribunal’s bounds of authority.
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