We have all been there. A vital transaction needs to be made (think course registration, ticket purchase, visa payment) but, as you sit there drumming your fingers impatiently on the table, you are greeted with the message: "Our System is Currently Unavailable".
Now imagine that you wanted to access the system in order to re-register your gold holdings, assets on which you had spent $80,000 maintaining. Further imagine that, in the time you could not access the system, you forfeited your gold holdings because you missed the re-registration deadline and someone else swooped in and registered them.
This is the factual scenario of Valterra Resource Corp. v. British Columbia (Chief Gold Commissioner), 2013 BCSC 1172: