In Chartered Professional Accountants of Alberta v Saleh, 2025 ABKB 642 (Oviatt), the Alberta Court of King’s Bench restricted the ability of a complainant to make future complaints related to CPAA without leave of the Court.
This case is important because administrative tribunals like the CPAA have an important public function, but they have a limited ability to prevent waste of resources on frivolous and duplicative complaints.
Facts
The following were some of the pertinent facts summarized by the Alberta Court of King’s Bench:
- The Chartered Professional Accountants of Alberta (“CPAA”) is a professional regulatory body for the accounting profession in Alberta. The CPAA regulates its members by investigating complaints of professional misconduct and imposing discipline on members who have acted below its professional standards
- An individual complainant (the “Complainant”) had brought multiple duplicative professional conduct complaints against CPAA members for unprofessional conduct, and against CPAA employees and officers for how they handled complaints:
- The Complainant brought four professional conduct complaints against regulated member CW for the same conduct. After the first one was dismissed, the Complainant appealed it
- After the appeal of the first one was dismissed, the Complainant brought a fresh second complaint on the same facts and allegations, and then a third. For these, the CPAA directed no further action be taken under section 68(2) of the CPA Act because there was no jurisdiction to adjudicate it again
- The Complainant then brought a fourth complaint on the same facts and allegations. The CPAA did not process the fourth complaint, but instead asked the Court to intervene
- The Complainant also brought a complaint against CPAA regulated member AD that was connected to the complaints against CW. It was dismissed and appealed, and the appeal is outstanding
- The Complainant also brought complaints against 3 individuals employed or in officer positions with the CPAA’s Complaints Inquiry Committee. Each of these complaints related to the handling of the CW complaints
- Further, the Complainant made a broad request for information under private sector privacy legislation for records relating to employees or officers handing the CW complaints, including employment history.
- The CPAA does not have an internal mechanism to prevent someone from making duplicative or excessive complaints
- The CPAA applied to the Court to prevent the Complainant from making any more complaints involving the CPAA without leave of the court (i.e. would need Court permission first)
- The Complainant cross-applied to the Court for injunctive relief which included:
- extensive disclosure of his interaction with CPAA,
- a direction that CPAA provide requested accommodations
- a direction that CPAA appoint a third-party investigator for his CPAA complaints
- a declaration of breaches of procedural fairness; and
- an injunction against the CPAA from bringing legal or administrative actions against him
Analysis / Conclusion
The ABKB first considered whether it had the power with its inherent jurisdiction to grant the remedy the CPAA was seeking, and under what circumstances. The Court found that it did have authority to impose gatekeeping functions in relation to a tribunal or administrative body and could do so in this case:
[9] In Carter at para 48, this court summarized a set of principles arising from the Supreme Court of Canada decision in R v Caron, 2011 SCC 5 for when a superior court may exercise its inherent jurisdiction to assist a subordinate entity, like an administrative tribunal:
- Intervention may occur where that is “essential to the proper administration of justice” and to thereby “avoid an injustice”;
- The potential trigger for intervention is where the other body is “powerless to act”, and “have not the power to protect themselves” in relation to the injustice;
- Novelty is no obstacle to the supervisory exercise of inherent jurisdiction; and
- Supervisory exercise of inherent jurisdiction may occur provided that intervention does not contravene existing legislation.
[10] Recently, Associate Chief Justice Nixon of this court found that a person was a vexatious litigant in court and in other forums, and placed restrictions on him across multiple forums. In Tican v Alamgir, 2025 ABKB 517 at para 95, ACJ Nixon explained the balancing that must occur when placing restrictions on anyone seeking to access the judicial system, whether at the court level or in a subordinate entity’s forum:
Public access to courts, tribunals and remedies is an underlying principle of Canadian governance. However, that access cannot be boundless given the limited resources of such institutions and the need to provide timely access and remedies to all litigants.
[…]
[14] In this case, section 68 of the CPA Act allows the Complaints Inquiry Committee Secretary to direct no further action on a complaint if there is no jurisdiction. The CPAA has used that power but there is no express authority in the CPA Act to prevent the filing of a complaint in the first instance, or to address multiple frivolous proceedings in other forums. While the CPAA may have some ability to direct its own process and develop internal screening mechanisms, I am satisfied that court assistance is required in the circumstances.
The Court concluded that the continual repetition the same complaint by the Complainant was abusive litigation conduct, and that the requests for information were part of a pattern of abusive litigation conduct. These findings led the Court to dismiss the Complainant’s cross-application, and was the foundation to impose restrictions on the Complainant’s ability to bring future complaints.
The Complainant asked for an accommodation by the Court for this application process, which was that the Court view a pre-recorded video as part of his argument. The Court declined it at first, but did view it after the Chambers date on consent of the CPAA and considered it part of his argument but not evidence.
The Court granted the CPAA’s requested order, which was to:
- Stay the fourth CW professional misconduct complaint, while allowing the second and CW appeals to complete
- Prevents the Complainant from starting new complaints under the CPA Act or other proceedings involving the CPAA without leave of the Court
My Take
The fact that the Complainant was not allowed to make further complaints under the CPA Act is not surprising to me. This situation does have some common hallmarks of abusive litigation.
However, the Court went further here by preventing complaints involving the CPAA that fall outside of the CPA Act as well. I think it makes sense when a complainant is determined to launch as many complaints in as many forums as possible, but I am not aware of many similar cases to this one. This case is noteworthy as a gauge for when the Court may be prepared to do take this additional step.
Bow River Law provides these regular legal blog articles for the purposes of legal news, education and research for the public and the legal profession. These articles should be considered general information and not legal advice. If you have a legal problem, you should speak to a lawyer directly.
