Bill C-60: Expert Witnesses to Testify Together?

Bill C-60 proposes to implement certain provisions of the March 21, 2013 federal budget; among these, proposed legislative amendments that pertain to the audit process in the Income Tax Act, and provisions in the Tax Court of Canada Rules. Discussed below in the last of a four-part series are changes to the Expert Witness rules.

Bill C-60 includes proposed amendments to Rule 145 of the Tax Court of Canada Rules (General Procedure), the rule pertaining to expert witnesses at trial. Expert witnesses are a controversial area in all litigation, and the Tax Court is no exception. As well as demanding more time with expert reports before the trial date, the new proposed rule would limit the amount of experts per party to five. If more experts are needed, leave (permission) from the court will be required.

Interestingly, the Tax Court will be able to order pre-trial conferences with the appointed experts. These meetings may or may not include all of the parties and their counsel, and a judge may or may not be present. The goal with these pre-trial expert conferences will be to narrow down the issues in order to make the trial a more streamlined process. To aid with this goal, joint statements produced by the experts at the pre-trial conference will be admissible in court.

Furthermore, the Tax Court will have the power to compel experts to testify together; this is a new idea that will certainly be watched closely when it is put into practice, and may be adopted in other areas of the law if it proves to be a successful solution.

LAST TIME: Changes to the Discovery Process