Decisions
All of the Board's published decisions are available on the Canadian Legal Information Institute (CanLII) website. CanLII is a well-known legal resource that organizes decisions by year and is searchable by key word. The most important of these are also available on our website under the categories below.
Interpretation Decisions clarify issues of interpretation of legislation, policy, or procedure. They establish binding precedents for those questions of law which have been determined in the decisions.
Rehear Decisions are made by the Board subsequent to a Federal Court judicial review decision ordering the Board to rehear the matter. When the Court overturns a Board decision and sends the case back for a new hearing, the Board rehears the case according to the Court's directions.
Leading and Persuasive Decisions (now archived) were introduced by the Board in 2012 as a means of increasing transparency by making select decisions available online. Since then, we have expanded our approach and are now publishing all of our decisions on CanLII. As a result, we will no longer be identifying decisions under this category and have archived them for reference purposes.
Disclaimer
The official version of a decision is the original signed copy that is placed in the applicant's file. The electronic copies posted on this site represent electronic reproductions of the official decisions. As such, they may contain typographical variations and will have a slightly different appearance (layout, spacing, font, etc.). Additionally, some personal information has been removed to protect individuals' privacy.
How the Board depersonalizes decisions
To balance openness in decision-making with applicants' privacy, the Board has chosen to remove personal information that is not relevant to the reasons for the decision. This includes names of the applicant or appellant and non-expert witnesses, as well as other information that could identify the individual (e.g. file numbers or home address). A published decision may contain some information that is relevant to the decision, such as:
- the relationship between the applicant/appellant and a family member or witness at the hearing;
- medical conditions;
- occupational information; and
- personal characteristics that are relevant to the disability application.
This approach is consistent with the principles found in the "Use of Personal Information in Judgments and Recommended Protocol" approved by the Canadian Judicial Council.