Interpretation of Statutes

Today’s Court of Appeal decision in  Blue Star Trailer Rentals Inc. v. 407 ETR Concession Company Limited, 2008 ONCA 561 provides a handy summary of the modern view on interpreting statutes.  The Court held, referring to Sullivan and Driedger on the Construction of Statutes (4th ed.) without explicit citation:

[22]          The Supreme Court of Canada has repeatedly endorsed Driedger’s approach to statutory interpretation.  Driedger’s modern principle is as follows:

Today there is only principle or approach, namely, the words of an Act are to be read in their entire context, in their grammatical and ordinary sense harmoniously with the scheme of the Act, the object of the Act, and intention of Parliament.  Bell ExpressVu Limited Partnership v. Rex, [2002] 2 S.C.R. 559 at para. 26.

[23]          This approach to statutory interpretation – sometimes referred to as the textual, contextual or purposive approach – requires an examination of three factors:  the language of the provision, the context in which the language is used and the purpose of the legislation or statutory scheme in which the language is found.

[24]          When applying this approach, it makes sense to start by examining the ordinary meaning or meanings of the words being interpreted.  The ordinary meaning is “the natural meaning which appears when the provision is simply read through”:  Canadian Pacific Airlines v. Canadian Air Line Pilots Assn., [1993] 3 S.C.R. 724 at 735, cited in Ruth Sullivan, Sullivan and Driedger on the Construction of Statutes, 4th ed. (Markham, Ont.:  Butterworths Canada Ltd., 2002) at 21.

[25]          After considering the ordinary meaning of the language involved, the court should consider the context in which the language is found as well as the purpose of the legislation or the statutory scheme.  If this analytical approach yields a plausible interpretation then the court need go no further and should adopt that interpretation.  It is only when there remains genuine ambiguity between reasonable interpretations that the court should resort to other principles of statutory interpretation:  see Bell ExpressVu at para. 29.