Interesting case (as far as tax cases can be) out of the Tax Court of Canada – Robertson v. Canada, [2010] T.C.J. No. 432. Two Aboriginal appellants from Norway House First Nation were allowed to maintain their tax exemption in light of the “commercial mainstream” test when they sold their catch through their Aboriginal co-op to a non-Aboriginal, commercial entity (Freshwater Fish Marketing Corp.).
“It has been established on the evidence, that taxing the Appellants would be an erosion of an important economic base that goes far beyond the emergence of an income source brought to the reserve by the outside world of commerce. It is a source that was always there and its present connections are not trappings. The connections to the reserve are genuine and historically based. As such, the subject income warrants protection from diminution by taxation.”
Turtle Talk 