In Westjet v. Lareau (Fed CA, 2025) the Federal Court of Appeal dismissed a Federal Court appeal, this where the "legal question before this Court is the scope of the safety category: when is a flight disruption "“within the carrier’s control but ... required for safety purposes”" under section 11 of the Regulations?"
Here the court notes the utility of 'testing' different SI rules when deciding the correct one to apply:
[132] A frequently used tool in the interpretive process is to assess the likely effects or results of rival interpretations to see which accords most harmoniously with text, context, and purpose:
This is appropriate. The judge is assessing effects or results not to identify an outcome that accords with personal policies or political preferences. Rather the judge is assessing them against the standard, accepted markers of text, context and purpose in order to discern the authentic meaning of the legislation. For example, if the effect of one interpretation offends the legislative purpose but the effect of another interpretation does not, the latter may be preferable to the former.
(Williams v. Canada (Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness), 2017 FCA 252, [2018] 4 F.C.R. 174 at para. 52.)
The author has waived all copyright and related or neighboring rights to this Isthatlegal.ca webpage.
