What are the reasonable legal parameters within which a judge can set aside a default judgment?

In Langor v. Spurrell, supra, at paragraph 44, Green J.A. set out what might be considered to be the ‘reasonable legal parameters’ within which a judge should exercise her or his discretion to set aside a default judgment. After noting that “…it is a precondition to set aside a default judgment that the applicant demonstrate a potentially good defence on the merits”, he went on to say that: Once a potentially good defence is shown, the defendant should then prima facie be entitled to have the judgment set aside so as to have a trial on the merits unless, considering all of the other circumstances, including the timeliness of the application and whether there is an explanation for not filing a defence within time, and whether there will be non-compensable prejudice to the plaintiff if the judgment is set aside, and the necessity for bringing finality to disputes, the court concludes that to set aside the judgment would not be a fair exercise of its discretion. The evidence: