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Top 10 Business Decisions
WRITTEN BY AIDAN MACNAB, BERNISE CAROLINO, JASON TAN, AND ANGELICA DINO
IN THALES, the Ontario Superior
Court determined that the domestic
production requirement in Ontario's bid-
request process was counter to the Canada-
European Union Comprehensive Economic
Trade Agreement (CETA).
e Ontario Ministry of Transportation
requested bids for "Card Production and
Photo Comparison Technolog y" to make
government identity cards. Ontario also
dismissed ales DIS Canada's appeal un-
der the provincial government's bid dispute
mechanism, which had challenged various
aspects of the RFB.
ales applied for judicial review of these
two decisions, arguing that dismissal was
biased, the process was procedurally unfair,
and the RFB's domestic production re-
e court also found that because the di-
rector of program and policy enablement did
not address the issue of a material contribu-
tion to the reduction of risk using realistic
assumptions, her determination that the im-
position of a domestic production require-
ment would materially contribute to the risk
of loss and the associated with the foreign
production and transportation to Canada
of Card Stock was not logically sound and
was unsupported by the evidence. Ontario's
Divisional Court quashed the RFB and the
decision to dismiss ales' challenge.
• Thales DIS Canada Inc. > Fasken > Peter
N. Mantas, Nabila Abdul Malik, Novera
Khan, Marcia Mills, Alexandra Logvin
• Ontario (Ministry of Transportation) >
Ministry of the Attorney General > Will
MacLarkey, Andi Jin, and Alex Redinger
CLIENTS > FIRMS > LAWYERS
quirement violated the non-discrimination
provisions of CETA and the Canadian Free
Trade Agreement.
On judicial review, ales argued that
Ontario's position – that the domestic pro-
duction requirement, under art. 19.3(2) of
CETA, was necessary – was unreasonable.
e appellate court assumed a public
safety interest in reducing the risk of loss,
the, and fraud associated with identity
documents that could potentially be the
subject of the public safety exception, giv-
en the significant issues this case addressed.
And the evidence could justify a finding of
a potential risk of loss, the, and fraud as-
sociated with "Card Stock" production and
transportation to Canada but could not jus-
tify a finding of a material practical risk.
THALES DIS CANADA INC. V. ONTARIO, 2022
ONSC 3166
