This appeal concerned whether Quebec's farm income stabilization program is a contract and how compensation-linkage decisions under section 88(3) must be interpreted.
The Court held the program is an innominate administrative contract, not a contract of insurance, and interpreted the text and structure as granting discretion over collective linkage.
Applying contractual good-faith and fairness principles, the majority found the respondent's collective methodology lawful in the circumstances.
The dissent would have allowed the appeal in part, concluding the linkage approach breached contractual limits by attributing notional amounts disconnected from participants' actual entitlements.
