Executive Summary: Key Legal and Evidentiary Issues

• Cheryl L. Rosenberger was found ineligible for both the Canada Recovery Benefits (CRB) and Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB) for failing to meet the $5,000 minimum income threshold

• Only $2,967.50 of her claimed self-employment income from cleaning and gardening services was supported by sufficient documentation

• Transportation income allegedly earned through work for Grant Park was rejected due to a lack of contemporaneous evidence and inconsistencies in bank statements and invoices

• New documents submitted by Ms. Rosenberger during judicial review were largely ruled inadmissible because they were not before the original decision-maker

• Procedural fairness was upheld despite the absence of phone call transcripts, as CRA agent notes demonstrated extensive communication and multiple opportunities for the applicant to submit evidence

• The Federal Court applied the reasonableness standard of review per Vavilov and found no reviewable error in the CRA's Final Determination

The background and the applicant's claim

Cheryl L. Rosenberger, a self-represented litigant, sought judicial review before the Federal Court of Canada of a decision by the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) dated April 17, 2025. The CRA had determined that Ms. Rosenberger was ineligible for both the Canada Recovery Benefits (CRB) and the Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB) — two COVID-19 pandemic income support programs established under the Canada Recovery Benefits Act, SC 2020, c 12, s 2 and the Canada Emergency Response Benefit Act, SC 2020, c 5, s 8, respectively. To qualify for either benefit, applicants were required to have earned at least $5,000 in employment or net self-employment income in 2019, 2020, or in the 12 months prior to the application date. Ms. Rosenberger had applied for and received CRB for 27 two-week periods between September 27, 2020 and October 9, 2021, and seven instalments of CERB between March 15, 2020 and September 26, 2020.

The applicant's sources of income and supporting evidence

At the time of her applications, Ms. Rosenberger described her income as deriving from odd jobs, including gardening, janitorial services, and transportation. In a letter dated February 3, 2023, the CRA notified her that her eligibility was under review and requested documents proving her income in the relevant timeframe. Over the course of four reviews, Ms. Rosenberger submitted various forms of evidence: bank statements for various months in 2019 and 2020, text messages, an invoice, cheques, and a signed statement from two friends who had paid her for gardening and cleaning services in 2019 and 2020. The bank statements originally showed only her husband, Richard Rosenberger, as the account holder, though she stated it was a joint account and provided a letter from the bank stating that both she and her husband had been long-term clients of the bank. She also claimed income from transportation work — specifically, she stated she was paid to drive her husband and run errands while her husband completed renovation work for Grant Park, with whom her husband had a long-standing business relationship. She provided highlighted bank statements and a signed letter from Grant Park purporting to show which payments were to her instead of her husband, as well as invoices from herself and from her husband for work completed for Grant Park in 2019.

The CRA's Final Determination

After reviewing all submitted documents and conducting several phone calls with Ms. Rosenberger, the CRA agent in the Final Determination found sufficient documentation to support $2,967.50 in income from her cleaning and gardening services. However, the agent did not accept that Ms. Rosenberger had earned sufficient income from her transportation services to reach the $5,000 requirement to qualify for the CRB and the CERB. The agent raised several concerns: Ms. Rosenberger had delayed mentioning or providing documents to support her transportation work for Grant Park until after she had submitted several documents and received a secondary review of her eligibility on November 20, 2023. Although the agent acknowledged her explanation that she struggled to get information because she lost access to her email account, was in the midst of moving, and was not aware the documentation was needed, the agent determined this work should have been mentioned in the initial reviews because it purported to represent approximately half of the income necessary to be eligible. The contemporaneous bank statements showed payments to a bank account with only her husband as the account holder, and the agent further questioned the inconsistency in the timing and quantity of payments allegedly paid to Ms. Rosenberger. The signed letter from Grant Park, dated March 15, 2025, was not accepted because it was not contemporaneous. The agent also analyzed the alleged proceeds from the sale of a smart car, which Ms. Rosenberger's husband had advertised online. Ms. Rosenberger had explained that this car was to be sold in order to pay her and her husband for unpaid transportation work for Grant Park. However, the invoice provided by her husband showed that the proceeds from the car were to be paid to her husband and that the balance would be paid to Ms. Rosenberger, but it did not show the correct date or any details regarding the work completed. Additionally, the CRA agent could not determine Ms. Rosenberger's expenses or net self-employment income because she had explained that her husband claimed all of her expenses and that sometimes Grant Park would pay for the expenses along with the transportation work.

Admissibility of new documents on judicial review

At the judicial review stage, the Respondent (the Attorney General of Canada) challenged the admissibility of several new documents Ms. Rosenberger submitted in her Application Record, arguing they were not before the decision-maker and did not fit under one of the prescribed categories of admissibility outlined in Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada v Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency (Access Copyright), 2012 FCA 22. These documents included an email exchange between Ms. Rosenberger and the Respondent about whether it was possible for her to conduct a cross-examination, a version of the Certified Tribunal Record (CTR) with annotations by the Applicant, and bank statements showing both her and her husband as joint account holders. Justice Ahmed agreed in part with the Respondent, ruling that the bank statements and annotated CTR were inadmissible because they attempted to resolve the conflict that was before the CRA agent and would allow the Court to intrude on the decision-maker's role. The email correspondence, while not interfering with the role of a reviewing court, was found to be not relevant to Ms. Rosenberger's application, as it related to her request to conduct a cross-examination on the CTR, which was not available in these proceedings.

The Court's analysis on reasonableness

The Court applied the reasonableness standard of review as set out in Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration) v Vavilov, 2019 SCC 65, requiring the decision under review to be transparent, intelligible, and justified. Justice Ahmed found that the CRA agent's notes — which are part of the decision, as established in Teymourian v Canada (Attorney General), 2025 FC 216 — demonstrated that the agent considered all of the Applicant's documents and explanations. The agent's notes showed close attention to each document purporting to support income from transportation services. The distinction drawn between the accepted letters from friends (which were accompanied by contemporaneous texts, emails, or communication) and the rejected letter from Grant Park (which was not) was found reasonable. Regarding Ms. Rosenberger's amended income tax assessments, the Court acknowledged the confusion that often accompanies the acceptance of an amended tax assessment by the CRA but a refusal to treat it as evidence in a review of eligibility for the CRB or the CERB. Nevertheless, the Court emphasized that Canada's tax system is based on self-assessments, and consistent case law holds that tax assessments are not conclusive evidence of eligibility for the CRB or the CERB.

The Court's analysis on procedural fairness

Ms. Rosenberger argued that procedural fairness could not be adequately assessed because the CTR lacked transcripts from her phone calls with the CRA agent prior to the Final Determination. The Court, applying the correctness standard, found that while transcripts may well have been preferable had they been available, the CRA agent's notes were sufficient to conduct a review of procedural fairness. The notes showed that the CRA agent had contacted Ms. Rosenberger multiple times and communicated the issues with her documents, specifically informing her of concerns with her alleged income from transportation services. Since the start of her review process, the CRA had spoken with her about her documents eight times and allowed her to submit new documents 14 times. The Court concluded that Ms. Rosenberger knew the case to be met when she submitted additional documents throughout the reviewing process, and found no procedural error in the CRA's assessment.

The ruling and outcome

The Federal Court dismissed Ms. Rosenberger's application for judicial review, finding no reviewable error in the CRA's Final Determination on either reasonableness or procedural fairness grounds. The Court held that the Final Determination reflects the evidence before the decision-maker along with the legal framework for eligibility for the CRB and the CERB, and that the CRA's process upheld the principles of fairness through its clear and consistent communication with Ms. Rosenberger. The Attorney General of Canada was the successful party in this proceeding. No costs were awarded to either side.