Date: 19980116
Docket: A-806-96
CORAM: MARCEAU J.A.
DESJARDINS J.A.
LÉTOURNEAU J.A.
BETWEEN:
JOHN K. MacNEIL
Applicant
AND:
THE MINISTER OF HUMAN RESOURCES DEVELOPMENT
Respondent
Heard at Calgary, Alberta, Friday, January 16, 1998
Judgment delivered from the Bench at Calgary, Alberta, Friday, January 16, 1998
REASONS FOR JUDGMENT OF THE COURT BY: LÉTOURNEAU J.A.
Date: 19980116
Docket: A-806-96
CORAM: MARCEAU J.A.
DESJARDINS J.A.
LÉTOURNEAU J.A.
BETWEEN:
JOHN K. MacNEIL
Applicant
AND:
THE MINISTER OF HUMAN RESOURCES DEVELOPMENT
Respondent
REASONS FOR JUDGMENT OF THE COURT
(Delivered from the Bench at Calgary, Alberta
on Friday, January 16, 1998)
LÉTOURNEAU J.A.
[1] Despite the clear, concise and able representations made by counsel for the Applicant, we have not been convinced that the Pension Appeals Board has committed any error which justifies our intervention. The Board's finding that the Applicant's disability was not so severe as to make him incapable of performing any gainful employment is supported by the medical evidence filed before the Board.
[2] There is, for three reasons, no merit in the Applicant's submission that the Board failed to consider a more recent report made by the Applicant's family doctor and dated January 22, 1996.
[3] First, this report was made in the context of the assessment of the injuries suffered by the Applicant in a car accident. It was not meant to address his disability for purposes of a pension.
[4] Second, the skimpy conclusion that the patient has been disabled and unable to work since his discharge from the Armed Forces in 1991 is not supported by the analysis therein which, as we have mentioned, relates to a car accident.
[5] Third, this conclusion runs counter a conclusion made by the same doctor in an earlier report dated May 15, 1994, that the Applicant could do light duty work such as clerical tasks.
[6] As for the Applicant's complaint that he was denied natural justice, we see no merit in it. In support of his complaint, the Applicant submits that the Board drew improper inferences with regard to the extent of his back pain and hearing problems from his appearance at the hearing and from the fact that he responded to questions posed by counsel without apparent difficulty. The failure to respect the rules of natural justice would have resulted from the Board's failure to bring to the Applicant's attention its intent to draw adverse inferences from his demeanour in the hearing room and to give him the opportunity to rebut these inferences.
[7] It was a function of the Board to assess the credibility of witnesses appearing before it1 and the Board's inferences on the demeanour of the Applicant did not go beyond what is permissible for a tribunal of this nature. In addition, even if one makes abstraction of the demeanour of the Applicant before the Board and the inference the Board drew from it, there remains ample medical evidence to support its conclusion.
[8] The application will be dismissed.
J.A.
__________________1 Smades and The Minister of Employment and Immigration and Beaudoin, F.C.A. no. A-373-94, Ottawa, February 1, 1995.