How has the maxim expressio unius est exclusio alterius been interpreted in law?

From the foregoing it is evident that Farris, C.J.B.C., applied the maxim expressio unius est exclusio alterius to arrive at his interpretation of an appeal court's powers. However, whatever may be the utility of this canon of construction as an aid to interpreting private bargains, both British and Canadian authorities have held it to be an unreliable means of statutory interpretation and one which should be employed with caution. Thus in Colquhuon v. Brooks (1887), 19 Q.B.D. 400, Wills, J., in considering the construction of a statute observed at p. 406: “I may observe that the method of construction summarized in the maxim: ‘Expressio unius exclusio alterius’ is one that certainly requires to be watched. Perhaps few so-called rules of interpretation have been more frequently misapplied and stretched beyond their due limits. The failure to make ‘expressio’ complete very often arises from accident, very often from the fact that it never struck the draftsman that the thing supposed to be excluded needed specific mention of any kind.”