In Westjet v. Lareau (Fed CA, 2024) the Federal Court of Appeal (Stratas JA) importantly considered the shoddy administrative practice of 'bootstrapping':
[17] A further concern is "bootstrapping": administrative decision-makers making submissions to reviewing courts that, in reality, are new reasons supporting the decisions they made. This undermines two principles. First, administrative decision-makers must provide all necessary explanations in support of their decisions in their reasons and, if they fail to do that, their decisions may be set aside: Vavilov at para. 83. Second, after administrative decision-makers have decided matters, including explaining themselves in their reasons, they are functus or finished and, without legislative authorization, they cannot touch the matters again: Chandler v. Alberta Association of Architects, 1989 CanLII 41 (SCC), [1989] 2 S.C.R. 848.
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