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(BY HUGO)

In Tousignant v. Lac-Beauport (Municipalité de) (in French), the appellant, owner of a defective sceptic installation receiving waste water from his residence, was found by the Municipal Court in first instance to contravene to the Regulation respecting waste water disposal systems for isolated dwellings and was ordered to reconstruct the installation in conformity with the regulatory requirements.

Before the Superior Court, the appellant contests the validity of the injunctive orders from the Municipal Court based on lack of competence. In principle, the Superior Court has inherent and exclusive competence in injunctive matters as a court of first instance. Thus, the question is whether the Municipal Court exceeded its jurisdiction when it ordered the appellant to reconstruct the installation.

This debate has been studied recently by doctrine: see Daniel Bouchard & Hélène Gauvin, «L’article 56 de la Loi sur les compétences municipales: une jeune disposition, un vieux débat... latent» in Barreau du Québec, Développements récents en droit municipal 2008 (in French). The relevant provisions are section 29 of the Act respecting municipal courts as well as sections 25.1 and 56 to 61 of the Municipal Powers Act (MPA). In particular, the solution to the issue at hand turns on the interpretation of section 56 MPA: must it be interpreted as giving injunctive powers over immovables to the Municipal Court?

The Superior Court concludes that a restrictive interpretation should be favoured based on 2 principles of interpretation: 1) the expectation of coherence between laws; 2) the presumption of utility or validity of a legal disposition. As a result, section 56 MPA does not grant power to a Municipal Court to order the reconstruction of a sceptic installation, which is a permanent work and an immovable.

Of note is the fact that debate on the constitutionality of section 56 MPA was not addressed directly due to procedural questions.