Federal Court - Christian Aboriginal Infrastructure Developments ...

Page: 389
[1432] The commitment, otherwise called a “promise”, was made during the scheduled “due
diligence” meeting of July 15, 1997. The commitment was made to LPL.
[1433] The Defendant’s promise was intended to induce the construction of the mill. That promise,
or commitment, was negligently made by the Defendant’s servants who knew, at the time, that the
representation was untrue and would be relied upon. I have addressed earlier the constituent
2010 FC 495 (CanLII)
elements of negligent misrepresentation and my findings in that regard.
[1434] In closing submissions, Counsel for the Plaintiffs argued that the Defendant’s own
documents proved the case for the Plaintiffs. I agree. By the “Defendant’s own documents”, I mean
the documents created by the Defendant, including those documents that she did not produce. I refer
in that regard to the documents obtained by the Plaintiffs pursuant to access requests, and otherwise.
[1435] Those documents plainly show that DIAND wanted to have a mill built in southeast Yukon.
The Defendant’s policy decisions, as expressed in the Regulations that I mentioned earlier, required
a mill. The statutory mandate of DIAND required promotion of economic development in the
Yukon Territory. The mill fund had been established for the purpose of building a mill.
[1436] I refer, once again, to the decision in Carrier Lumber where the Court commented that the
issues had been clouded by an overly technical approach.
[1437] The same can be said here.