Executive Summary: Key Legal and Evidentiary Issues

• Tribunal’s assessment of whether the applicant’s repeated use of insulting, degrading, and foul language toward licensing officers breached the “civil and well-behaved” requirement under Chapter 546 of the Toronto Municipal Code.
• Extent to which the Toronto Licensing Tribunal had to consider alleged provocation and misconduct by Municipal Licensing and Standards (MLS) staff when weighing conflicting testimony and video evidence.
• Reasonableness of the Tribunal’s reliance on demeanor-based findings and video recordings, even though the incidents did not result in criminal or by-law charges.
• Adequacy of the Tribunal’s reasons in showing that it considered the applicant’s hardship and reliance on the licence, alongside the public interest in regulating Vehicle-for-Hire drivers.
• Whether the Tribunal’s process and evidentiary rulings respected procedural fairness when evaluating the applicant’s conduct in context.
• Overall reasonableness of the six-month suspension with anger-management condition and the subsequent licence revocation under the Vavilov framework for judicial review.

Background and regulatory context

The case arises from the City of Toronto’s regulatory framework for Vehicle-for-Hire (VFH) drivers, which includes taxicab and limousine drivers. Under Chapter 546 of the Toronto Municipal Code, these drivers must obtain a licence and comply with behavioural standards, including an obligation to be “civil and well-behaved” toward the public and municipal officials. The Municipal Licensing and Standards (MLS) Division administers this licensing regime and brings matters before the Toronto Licensing Tribunal (TLT) when there are concerns about a licensee’s conduct. Saraf (also spelled Sharaf) Samhadana held a VFH licence in Toronto. Concerns arose over his interactions with MLS officers and staff, including in-person encounters and written communications, prompting the MLS to refer his conduct to the TLT for consideration of whether his licence should be revoked, suspended, or made subject to conditions. The TLT conducted hearings over several days, receiving testimonial, documentary, and video evidence about the applicant’s dealings with MLS personnel.

The first Tribunal hearing and six-month suspension

The first TLT proceeding was a three-day hearing to determine whether the applicant had breached the behavioural requirements under Chapter 546 by failing to be civil and well-behaved toward MLS officers and staff. The Tribunal heard witnesses, reviewed documents, and watched videos capturing interactions between the applicant and MLS personnel. On the evidentiary record, the TLT found that the applicant had raised his voice, used insulting and demeaning language, and subjected MLS staff to foul, degrading language during in-person encounters and correspondence. The Tribunal further found that he had followed MLS staff around even as they tried to disengage from him, and on some occasions his conduct led them to seek police assistance. The applicant argued that his behaviour was provoked by misconduct and harassment from MLS staff, asserting that there was a deliberate campaign against him. The TLT considered his explanations and the overall context but concluded that he had not been provoked in a way that justified his actions, and that there was no deliberate campaign of harassment by MLS officers. Having established a failure to meet the “civil and well-behaved” standard, the Tribunal turned to remedy. It took into account the hardship that a loss of licence would cause, including the applicant’s reliance on his VFH licence for his livelihood and his stress at the time. Balancing those considerations against its public-interest mandate to maintain standards in the licensing system, the TLT ordered a six-month suspension. Importantly, the suspension was conditional: the Tribunal required the applicant to provide written verification that he had completed and benefitted from anger-management counselling before regaining his licence.

The second Tribunal decision revoking the licence

After completing the anger-management program, the applicant requested a further hearing before the TLT to show that he had complied with the condition and benefitted from the counselling. At this second hearing, the Tribunal received testimony and additional evidence about events occurring after the first decision. The evidence showed that the applicant had continued to use degrading and insulting language toward MLS officers on numerous occasions. In its assessment of his testimony, the TLT found that he still did not understand what it meant to be civil and well-behaved, even after completing anger-management counselling. The Tribunal acknowledged again the seriousness of a revocation and the economic hardship the applicant would face if he lost his VFH licence. However, it considered that the post-suspension conduct demonstrated an ongoing failure to meet the conduct standards imposed by Chapter 546 and that the public interest in ensuring respectful and safe dealings between licensees and municipal officials outweighed the applicant’s personal hardship. In light of this pattern of behaviour and its regulatory mandate to protect the public interest, the TLT decided to revoke the applicant’s VFH licence. That second decision built upon the prior findings: despite a structured opportunity to address his conduct through anger management and a time-limited suspension, the applicant’s behaviour toward MLS personnel had not improved in a way that satisfied the Tribunal.

The judicial review application and evidentiary complaints

Following the revocation, the applicant brought an application for judicial review to the Ontario Divisional Court, challenging both the July 7, 2024 decision imposing the six-month suspension and the September 17, 2025 decision revoking his licence. He alleged that the TLT’s decisions were unreasonable and procedurally unfair. At the outset, the City of Toronto objected to supplementary materials that the applicant had filed in the judicial review. The Court applied the test in Keeprite and related cases on when extra-record evidence may be admitted in judicial review proceedings. It held that the proposed materials did not fall within the limited permissible categories and appeared to consist largely of submissions and legal arguments, not proper evidence. As a result, the Court refused to admit that supplementary evidence, although it treated any submissions embedded in those materials as part of the applicant’s written argument. On the merits, the applicant framed his issues as centered on four related points. First, he said the Tribunal had ignored relevant evidence of MLS misconduct and provocation. Second, he argued that the TLT had erred in relying on demeanor-based findings and video evidence, especially because the incidents captured on video had not led to any charges. Third, he claimed the TLT had breached procedural fairness by evaluating his conduct in isolation and excluding contextual evidence about MLS actions. Fourth, he contended that both the suspension and revocation decisions were unreasonable when assessed under the Supreme Court of Canada’s Vavilov framework.

The Court’s analysis of standard of review and reasonableness

The Divisional Court identified the applicable standard of review as reasonableness, both as to the outcomes and the process used by the TLT, citing Vavilov. It emphasized that judicial review is not an opportunity to re-weigh the evidence or substitute the Court’s view of factual findings for that of the specialized tribunal. Instead, the question is whether the decisions are justified, intelligible, and transparent in light of the legal and factual constraints. The Court observed that the applicant’s complaints largely attacked how the TLT weighed the evidence and which accounts it believed. He maintained that the Tribunal had not considered the “full context,” particularly his allegations of provocation and misconduct by MLS staff. After reviewing the Tribunal’s reasons, the Court concluded that the TLT had in fact considered the applicant’s testimony about MLS conduct and his claims of provocation alongside other witnesses’ evidence and the videos. The reasons showed that the Tribunal grappled with the conflicting accounts and expressly rejected the assertion that MLS was engaged in a campaign of harassment or that its conduct excused the applicant’s behaviour. The Court therefore found no basis to say that the TLT ignored relevant contextual evidence. On the challenge to the video evidence, the Court rejected the idea that the absence of charges meant the videos could not be relied on. Administrative tribunals are not limited to evidence that could or did ground criminal or by-law prosecutions; they may receive and weigh relevant video recordings as part of their fact-finding process. The Divisional Court held that the TLT had committed no error in relying on those videos to assess demeanor and conduct. As for the reasonableness of the sanctions, the Court noted that the TLT had explicitly considered the applicant’s hardship and dependence on his licence at both stages. In the first decision, it opted for a six-month suspension coupled with an anger-management condition, rather than outright revocation, thereby giving the applicant an opportunity to retain his licence if he addressed his conduct. In the second decision, the Tribunal again recognized the hardship but concluded that public-interest considerations and evidence of post-suspension misconduct justified revocation. The Court found that this remedial progression and reasoning fell well within a range of reasonable outcomes.

Outcome of the judicial review and implications

Applying Vavilov, the Divisional Court held that the TLT’s decisions met the required standard of justification, intelligibility, and transparency. The Tribunal had considered the documentary, testimonial, and video evidence; addressed the applicant’s contextual and provocation arguments; evaluated the impact of the decisions on his livelihood; and explained why, in light of its public-interest mandate and the continuing pattern of disrespectful conduct, suspension followed by revocation was warranted. The Court therefore concluded that the applicant had not shown that either the process was unfair or the decisions were unreasonable. It dismissed the application for judicial review and declined to interfere with the six-month suspension, the anger-management condition, or the eventual revocation of the VFH licence. The City of Toronto also confirmed to the Court that the applicant is not permanently barred from the industry: he may re-apply for a licence in the future, and if his application is refused, he would again be entitled to a hearing where he could present evidence of steps taken to address the concerns underlying the revocation. In its formal disposition, the Divisional Court ordered that the application be dismissed and expressly stated that there would be no order as to costs. As a result, the successful parties—the City of Toronto and the Toronto Licensing Tribunal—obtained confirmation that the suspension and revocation decisions stand, but no monetary award, damages, or costs were granted in their favour, and the total amount ordered is therefore nil.