Law in Quebec

News about Quebec legal developments

Business

  • McGill law professors stage one-day strike to spur productive negotiations

    A newly certified bargaining unit representing McGill law professors staged a one-day strike after negotiations with the university administration over its first collective agreement stalled, the first time since the university’s founding two hundred years ago that professors erected picket lines on campus.

    The Association of McGill Professors of Law (AMPL), handed a strike mandate for a maximum of five days by its members in mid-December, asserts that the university is negotiating in bad faith in spite of the intervention of a government-appointed conciliator by arriving at bargaining sessions unprepared, refusing to meet on a frequent and regular basis, and rebuffing attempts to acknowledge that conditions that have been agreed upon cannot be unilaterally changed by the university and applied to AMPL members without their consent.

    (more…)

    Categories: , ,
    Tags: , , ,

  • French Language Charter draft regulations provides more clarity but questions remain

    An eagerly awaited draft regulation intended to yield guidance on amendments introduced by Bill 96 to the Charter of the French Language sheds light on certain areas but raises additional questions, is more restrictive, has more onerous requirements and risks alienating some sectors of the business world, according to legal pundits.

    The draft Regulation to amend mainly the Regulation respecting the language of commerce and business, released nearly 18 months after Bill 96 amendments to the French Charter received royal assent, mainly deals with the public display of trademarks and French language labelling of products, but also touches on adhesion contracts and commercial documents.

    (more…)

    Categories: , ,
    Tags: , ,

  • Crown prosecutors taking Quebec government to court in wage dispute

    Days after Quebec’s adjudicators issued an ultimatum due to a lack of “concrete proposals” over their demands for major pay hikes, Quebec Crown prosecutors, “dismayed and insulted” by the Quebec government’s “bad faith” during negotiations, filed a motion before Quebec Superior Court to invalidate a government decision that affects their working conditions, the latest labour conflict to surface between the Quebec government and leading legal actors.

    The application for judicial review and motion, the second legal challenge the Quebec Association of Public Prosecutors for Criminal and Penal Prosecutions has mounted over the past three months, was launched after the Quebec government unilaterally rejected or modified recommendations made by an arbitrator appointed by both parties over normative conditions, including workload, family leave and remote working, said Guillaume Michaud, the organization’s president.

    “The aim of this appeal is to get the government to follow the recommendations of an independently appointed arbitrator,” explained Michaud. “If it doesn’t, we end up with a useless mechanism. This means that on day one when I sit down with the government to negotiate, I know that in the end it can decide what it wants. It makes no sense for the other side to have a say at the end and then decide what it wants.”

    (more…)

    Categories: ,
    Tags: ,

  • New trend in case law emerges dealing with work-related psychological trauma

    A new trend in case law dealing with work-related psychological trauma has emerged over the past year that both clarifies the test dealing with workplace mental injury and will likely lighten the burden for employees to make their case, according to legal pundits.

    A series of decisions by the Quebec Administrative Labour Tribunal adjudicators have called into question the widely-held notion, fleshed out in the 1990s, that the event or series of events alleged to be the cause of the mental injury be objectively traumatic, a requirement that imposes a burden of proof that is higher than the balance of probabilities, noted employment and labour law experts.

    (more…)

    Categories: , ,
    Tags: , , ,

  • Court’s approval of remediation agreement yields guidance but raises questions

    A remediation agreement sanctioned by Quebec Superior Court, the second in Canada, sheds new guidance and fleshes out principles applicable to the unique regime but also raises concerns over the opaqueness of the process and the relatively hands-off approach by the court, according to legal experts.

    The “important” decision, the first one involving the Public Prosecution Service of Canada (PPSC), reaffirms that courts must follow a deferential approach towards the terms of the agreement; rejected contentions that approval hearings should be in- camera; and held that in the absence of victim reparations — a “core value” of the regime — prosecutors must provide reasons why reparations are not appropriate.

    Quebec Superior Court Justice Marc David also provides clarity over a victim’s standing to intervene in the proceedings and approvals of settlements, holding that the remediation agreement framework is not designed to resolve private civil law liability issues as it recognizes only two participants in the process, the prosecutor and the accused organization.

    (more…)

    Categories: , , ,
    Tags: ,

  • Quebec Appeal Court seeks to avoid opening floodgates for claims against landlords, say experts

    The Quebec Court of Appeal, concerned about opening the “floodgates” for claims against landlords, held that a commercial tenant could not invoke the notion of legal disturbance to stop paying their rent during  the COVID-19 pandemic, according to legal experts.

    The possibility that health decrees might constitute a legal disturbance has been raised on a number of occasions by trial judges, particularly at the safeguard order stage, but this is the first time that the Appeal Court has addressed the issue.

    (more…)

    Categories: , ,
    Tags: , , , , ,

  • Quebec ruling ‘important step forward’ for labour rights

    Quebec’s provincial police officers, dissatisfied with the progress of labour negotiations, will begin donning colourful cargo pants, a tactic that was given the green light by a ruling that recognizes the right to modify uniforms as an “associational activity” that could be protected by the Canadian Charter.

    “We have no choice but to resort to a means of visibility that conveys a message of dissatisfaction,” said Jacques Painchaud, president of the Quebec Provincial Police Association (APPQ), in a press release.

    (more…)

    Categories: , , ,
    Tags: , , , ,

  • Crypto-asset exchange platforms under the spotlight

    The Quebec financial watchdog is clamping down on foreign crypto-asset trading platforms.

    Barely two months after a Dubai-based crypto-asset trading platform operating without a licence in Quebec was fined $2 million and ordered to cease trading in the province, the Financial Markets Administrative Tribunal (Tribunal) sanctioned the operators behind Hong Kong-based Coinex.com and its entities.

    The Tribunal imposed an an administrative penalty of $2 million on Coinex and its entities, on a joint and several basis, and an administrative penalty of $300,000 against  its founder Haipo Yang.  CoinEx Global Limited, founded in 2017, also trades as CoinEx and CoinEx.com, CoinEx Global Limited (CoinEx Canada), CoinEx Global Limited (CoinEx Estonia) and Vino Global Limited (Vino Global). The Tribunal also ordered the CoinEx entities, Vino Global Limited, and Haipo Yang to permanently block access to the site within two months following the ruling.

    The decisions by the administrative tribunal reaffirms the resolve by securities watchdogs to protect investors from non-compliant crypto-asset trading platforms firms, according to legal experts.

    (more…)

    Categories: , ,
    Tags: , , ,

  • Easing of Quebec language law may be helpful for business, but questions remain: legal experts

    New regulations aimed at blunting some of the more onerous stipulations of Bill 96, Quebec’s French language law, help take into account practical realities faced by business and organizations but are not the panacea some may think, legal experts warn.

    The regulations, one aimed at Quebec’s civil administration and the other targeting the research world, clarify provisions of the Quebec Charter of the French Language (Charter) and temper the blanket requirement to use French, allowing under limited circumstances the use of languages other than French in communications, contracts and documents.

    (more…)

    Categories: ,
    Tags: , ,

  • Insurer to pay $1.5 million after Quebec Superior Court deems suicide exclusion to be null and void

    In “an invitation to the seemingly impenetrable world of insurers to open their eyes” to a legislative requirement of public order designed to protect the interests of the insured, Quebec Superior Court ruled that an insurance company must pay beneficiaries $1.5 million because it failed to properly reveal exclusions in an insurance policy.

    (more…)

    Categories: , , ,
    Tags: , ,

  • Competition Bureau to investigate Quebec real estate services market

    The Competition Bureau will be investigating conduct by the Quebec Professional Association for Real Estate Brokers (QPAREB) and its subsidiary, Société Centris, regarding real estate data sharing restrictions.

    The Association, a non-profit organization with more than 14,000 real estate brokers and agencies, manages the multiple listing service (MLS) that collects Quebec real estate transaction data, which Quebec real estate brokers use as part of their brokerage services.

    (more…)

    Categories: ,
    Tags: ,

  • Appeal Court underlines employers do not have a free pass to ask questions to potential employees

    A prospective police officer who alleged that the Quebec provincial police force withdrew its pre-employment offer because he has Tourette Syndrome was rebuffed by the Quebec Court of Appeal after it found instead that he was not forthright and did not act in good faith during the hiring process.

    In a decision in line with prior jurisprudence, the Quebec Appeal Court sheds new guidance that advises employers to exercise caution when drafting questionnaires, particularly medical queries, even in cases when pre-employment offers have been made, according to employment and legal experts. The unanimous per curium ruling acknowledges that it is a difficult balance to achieve between asking overly broad questions that may be deemed to be discriminatory under the Quebec Charter of human rights and freedoms and drafting “too specific” questions that may deprive employers of relevant and necessary information.

    “It provides some guidelines to employers,” remarked Finn Makela, a law professor at the Université de Sherbrooke where he teaches labour and employment law. “One, it’s not an open bar. Employers can’t just ask super vague questions. And second, the decision also confirms the jurisprudence that the employer needs to justify in their specific circumstances why questions are related to job functions. So that gives some guidance. But, as the Cour of Appeal says, it’s not always easy.”

    (more…)

    Categories: , , ,
    Tags: , ,

  • Quebec justice system in the midst of ‘collapsing, say leading legal actors

    The Quebec justice system is in the midst of “collapsing,” sagging under the weight of underfinancing and bedevilled by a “catastrophic” shortage of court personnel, with more than 20 per cent of employees resigning in a year, prompting leading legal actors to describe the situation as “embarrassing” and even more alarmingly, kindling a public lack of confidence in the province’s justice system.

    The situation has never been so dire, worse than late this spring when a vexed legal community warned the Quebec government that the justice system, mired in a series of crippling labour standoffs that spurred mounting adjournments, was desperately in need of more funds to prop up the justice system. But while tense labour relations with a host of legal actors have subsided since the fall thanks to new collective agreements and a new legal aid accord, legal pundits assert far more has to be done to halt the exodus of courtroom personnel who are leaving in droves because remuneration is simply not competitive.

    “There is a crisis in the justice system that has led to a crisis of confidence,” noted Catherine Claveau, president of the Quebec Bar. “And I, as the president of a professional order whose primary mission is the protection of the public, when the situation of underfunding in particular means that our institutions are undermining the right of citizens to have access to effective and quality justice, well for me, this corresponds to a real crisis.”

    (more…)

    Categories: , , , , ,
    Tags: ,

  • McGill law professors unionized

    Almost a year to the day when McGill law professors formally launched proceedings to become recognized as an exclusive bargaining unit for faculty members, the longer than expected legal battle culminated with an unequivocal victory after the Quebec labour board issued granted certification, a first for professors in the university’s 200-year history.

    The “slam dunk” decision by the Quebec Administrative Labour Tribunal sets the stage for changes to the labour landscape at McGill, with the new union intending to flex its muscles over a growing inclination towards centralization at the university, safeguard the collegial governance at the faculty level and negotiate a collective agreement that will provide better working conditions and security, according to leaders of the Association of McGill Law Professors (AMPL).

    (more…)

    Categories: , ,
    Tags: , ,

  • Legal experts hope first remediation agreement under Criminal Code will lead to more

    Nearly four years after the federal government added deferred prosecution agreements to the Criminal Code as part of its arsenal to fight corruption and other white-collar crime, legal experts hope that guidance provided by Quebec Superior Court in Canada’s first ever remediation agreement will prompt federal prosecutors and organizations to take advantage of the new way of settling criminal charges.

    The comprehensive, meticulous and “important” decision introduces a “welcome” degree of certainty to the new process in the absence of accompanying regulations, guidelines or policies in the remediation agreement regime, according to legal experts. The ruling by Quebec Superior Court Justice Éric Downs sheds light on how remediation agreements will be broached by the courts, indicating that while they will not act as a “rubber stamp” in reviewing proposed settlements, the agreements will be afforded a high degree of deference, added the experts. The judgment also signals that self-reporting, though not a “hard condition,” will carry considerable weight as does “strong cooperation” to help sway the courts to sanction the agreement, they added.

    “It’s an important decision because there were question marks around how the courts would approach the approval of a remediation agreement and how involved they would be in the process,” noted Louis-Martin O’Neill, a Montreal M&A and securities litigator with Davies Ward Phillips & Vineberg LLP. “The Court was very mindful of the fact that there is a huge need for stability in the system, and that implies that when a corporation starts to negotiate with the prosecution for a remediation agreement it has to know that unless something very grave happens, that agreement should stick when presented to the court.”

    (more…)

    Categories: , , , ,
    Tags: , ,
Law in Quebec
Powered by  GDPR Cookie Compliance
Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognizing you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.