|
Statutory Interpretation - When Interpreted in Light of Changing Technology and Science. Telus Communications Inc. v. Federation of Canadian Municipalities
In Telus Communications Inc. v. Federation of Canadian Municipalities (SCC, 2025) the Supreme Court of Canada dismissed an appeal, here from a Federal Court of Appeal dismissal, that from a CRTC ruling that it did not have jurisdiction "to adjudicate disputes over access to 5G small cell antennas situated on public property" under the 'access regime' for telecommunications carriers.
Here the SCC considers statutory interpretation in the context of changing technology:[31] The parties disagree on how legislation should be interpreted in response to changing circumstances. The carriers maintain that statutory terms are not “confined to their meaning” at the time of enactment and that the CRTC and the Court of Appeal erred in adopting a “static” rather than “dynamic” interpretation (A.F., Telus, at para. 65). The public authorities maintain that the carriers misconstrue the principle of dynamic interpretation by wrongly asserting that legislative terms can grow in meaning over time. Statutes, though enacted in the past, are interpreted and applied in the present. If circumstances have evolved between these two points in time, what bearing does this evolution have on the interpretive exercise?
[32] Statutory interpretation is centered on the intent of the legislature at the time of enactment and courts are bound to give effect to that intent (see Perka v. The Queen, 1984 CanLII 23 (SCC), [1984] 2 S.C.R. 232, at pp. 264-66; R. v. Big M Drug Mart Ltd., 1985 CanLII 69 (SCC), [1985] 1 S.C.R. 295, at p. 335; United States of America v. Dynar, 1997 CanLII 359 (SCC), [1997] 2 S.C.R. 462, at para. 45; P.-A. Côté and M. Devinat, Interprétation des lois (5th ed. 2021), at para. 24; R. Sullivan, The Construction of Statutes (7th ed. 2022), at § 6.01[1]). Courts must be careful not to “exceed their institutional role” by engaging in political questions raised by changes subsequent to enactment, which are better addressed by legislatures (Sullivan, at § 6.01[3]).
[33] This principle does not, however, prevent courts from applying statutes to new or evolving circumstances. It is uncontroversial that, in the exercise of their legislative authority, enacting legislatures can use broad or open-textured language to cover circumstances that are neither in existence nor in their contemplation (see R. v. D.L.W., 2016 SCC 22, [2016] 1 S.C.R. 402, at para. 61; Perka, at p. 265; Côté and Devinat, at para. 285). Indeed, they frequently do so to ensure the long-term objects of an enactment can be achieved without constantly reopening the statute (see Sullivan, § 6.01[2]).
[34] A legislature may in this way intend that a provision be interpreted dynamically, in that the provision should be capable of applying to new sociological or technological circumstances as they arise (Sullivan, at § 6.03). If this original intention is to be preserved, courts must interpret broad or open-textured concepts in a manner sensitive to the evolving context (see R. v. 974649 Ontario Inc., 2001 SCC 81, [2001] 3 S.C.R. 575, at para. 38). Such an approach does not detract from the enacting legislature’s will — it furthers it. This principle has been codified in s. 10 of the Interpretation Act, R.S.C. 1985, c. I-21, which provides that the law is “always speaking” and “shall be applied to the circumstances as they arise, so that effect may be given to the enactment according to its true spirit, intent and meaning”.
[35] Properly understood, there is no contradiction between the principles that the interpretive exercise is grounded in the intent of the enacting legislature and that statutes can be applied to circumstances that were not contemplated by the legislature. Lord Bingham’s dictum in R. (Quintavalle) v. Secretary of State for Health, [2003] UKHL 13, [2003] 2 A.C. 687, at para. 9, illustrates this point:There is, I think, no inconsistency between the rule that statutory language retains the meaning it had when Parliament used it and the rule that a statute is always speaking. If Parliament, however long ago, passed an Act applicable to dogs, it could not properly be interpreted to apply to cats; but it could properly be held to apply to animals which were not regarded as dogs when the Act was passed but are so regarded now. [36] In this way, dynamic interpretation is situated firmly within the modern approach. There is no bright line between statutes that are “static” and statutes that are “dynamic”. The degree to which a provision is capable of applying to new circumstances, including new technology, is an interpretive question like any other that must be answered by reading the text in context and consistent with the legislature’s purpose.
....
[80] In interpreting Parliament’s intent and applying it to developing circumstances, courts must be careful not to engage in policy choices best left to legislatures. “It is not for the Court to do by ‘interpretation’ what Parliament chose not to do by enactment” (Canadian Broadcasting Corp. v. SODRAC 2003 Inc., 2015 SCC 57, [2015] 3 S.C.R. 615, at para. 53). . Telus Communications Inc. v. Federation of Canadian Municipalities
In Telus Communications Inc. v. Federation of Canadian Municipalities (Fed CA, 2023) the Federal Court of Appeal considered 'when' statutory text should be interpreted, in terms of changing technical and scientific contexts:[92] The appellant similarly contends that the words "“transmission line”" should be interpreted in a dynamic and evolving way, and claims that the meaning ascribed to these words by the CRTC is frozen in time. There is no doubt that legislation must be interpreted in light of changing circumstances. This is particularly true of constitutional and quasi-constitutional statutes, because they are meant to endure over time and are difficult to amend. That being said, care must be taken to refrain from amending legislation in the name of interpreting it. Navigating between these equally important concerns is obviously a delicate exercise.
[93] The Supreme Court provides some guidance in that respect. In Perka v. The Queen, [1984] 2 S.C.R. 232, 1984 CanLII 23 (at pp. 264-265) [Perka], for example, the Court started with the proposition that the words of a statute must generally receive the meaning they had at the time of enactment. As the Court recognized, this is not to say that all terms in all statutes must always be confined to their original meanings. Broad statutory categories and "“open-textured”" legislative language, for example, must be capable of growth to take into account changing circumstances. The Court has since cautioned that even where constitutional documents are involved, the starting point must always be the text of the provision: see Quebec (Attorney General) v. 9147-0732 Québec Inc., 2020 SCC 32, 451 D.L.R. (4th) 367 at paras. 8-10; British Columbia (Attorney General) v. Canada (Attorney General), [1994] 2 S.C.R. 41, 1994 CanLII 81 at p. 88. In Perka, the Court explicitly cautioned against giving a technical term a new meaning that would stray from Parliament’s intention at the time of enacting the statute:(...) But where, as here, the legislature has deliberately chosen a specific scientific or technical term to represent an equally specific and particular class of things, it would do violence to Parliament’s intent to give a new meaning to that term whenever the taxonomic consensus among members of the relevant scientific fraternity shifted…
Perka at p. 265. See also R. v. D.L.W., 2016 SCC 22, [2016] 1 S.C.R. 402 at para. 61; Canada v. Cheema, 2018 FCA 45, [2018] 4 F.C.R. 328 at para. 74
|
