Jennifer Klinck

The Supreme Court considered whether article 35, paragraph 1 of Quebec's Code of Civil Procedure, which grants the Court of Québec exclusive jurisdiction over civil disputes valued at less than $85,000, is constitutional under section 96 of the Constitution Act, 1867.

The majority held that the provision unconstitutionally infringes on the core jurisdiction of the Superior Court by creating a prohibited parallel court, given the breadth of the jurisdiction, its exclusivity, the absence of accessible appeal to the superior court, and a monetary ceiling approximately 29 percent above the updated historical limit.

The second question, concerning whether the Court of Québec must apply judicial deference standards when hearing administrative appeals, was found to be moot following the combined effect of Vavilov and new legislation.

The Court dismissed the appeals but suspended the declaration of invalidity for 12 months to allow the Quebec legislature to enact a constitutional replacement.

The applicant, who successfully challenged a First Nation's decision to postpone its election and the validity of federal regulations allowing such postponement, sought costs from the First Nation and the Attorney General on a solicitor-client basis or an elevated scale.

The respondents argued for no costs due to divided success or requested that only the Attorney General bear the costs.

The Federal Court rejected the arguments for divided success and solicitor-client costs but awarded elevated costs in a lump sum, finding the challenge to the regulations raised important issues of public interest affecting First Nations nationwide.

The Court ordered the Attorney General to pay $20,000 and the First Nation to pay $10,000 to the applicant, and dismissed the First Nation's claim for costs against the Attorney General.

The appellants, the sole French-language school board in British Columbia and associated parents' federation and individual rights holders, brought a constitutional challenge alleging systemic underfunding of minority language education and inadequate facilities in numerous communities, contrary to s. 23 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

The majority clarified the sliding-scale framework for situating the number of minority language students so as to determine the level of educational services warranted, introducing a province-wide comparative presumption of pedagogical and cost appropriateness when majority language schools of comparable size exist elsewhere in the province.

The majority further held that substantive equivalence — not proportionality — is the applicable standard for assessing the quality of the educational experience throughout the sliding scale, and that infringements of s. 23 are subject to a particularly stringent justification standard under s. 1, such that the fair and rational allocation of public funds does not constitute a pressing and substantial objective.

The Court held that Mackin immunity from Charter damages does not extend to government policies infringing s. 23, and restored the trial judge's award of $6 million for the transportation funding freeze and ordered $1.1 million in additional damages for the Annual Facilities Grant Rural Factor breach.

Brown and Rowe JJ. dissented in part, rejecting the province-wide presumption as inconsistent with settled jurisprudence and as compressing the middle of the sliding scale, though agreeing on substantive equivalence, the invalidity of a purely financial s. 1 objective, and the appropriateness of Charter damages in the s. 23 context.

The appellant was charged with a provincial driving offence in British Columbia and applied to be tried in French pursuant to s. 530 of the Criminal Code.

The provincial court dismissed the application, holding that the 1731 Act mandated English-only proceedings.

The Supreme Court of Canada held that s. 133 of the Offence Act incorporates s. 530 of the Criminal Code, granting the right to be tried in either official language in provincial offence proceedings.

The Court further held that the provincial court's refusal to honour this right constituted a jurisdictional error amenable to immediate certiorari review, and that an appeal following conviction was not an adequate alternative remedy given the fundamental and personal nature of the language right violated.

In a customs tariff appeal, the appellant challenged a judgment that had set aside a tribunal classification of imported hockey gloves.

The Court held that Rules 1 and 2 of the General Rules for the Interpretation of the Harmonized System operate conjunctively within a hierarchical framework when determining prima facie headings.

The majority found the tribunal reasonably concluded the goods were classifiable as gloves under heading 62.16 and reasonably rejected classification under heading 39.26 on the record and applicable notes.

The appellate intervention was set aside and the tribunal decision restored, with dissenting reasons concluding the tribunal’s interpretation was unreasonable.

The appellants sought to file French-language exhibits attached to affidavits in constitutional litigation concerning minority-language education rights.

The majority held that British Columbia law required civil court proceedings, including exhibits relied on for their content, to be in English unless impracticable, and that this framework displaced residual inherent jurisdiction to admit untranslated French documents.

The Court further held that the 1731 English statute was received into provincial law and had not been displaced for this issue.

The dissent would have recognized continued inherent jurisdiction absent clear legislative ouster and remitted the matter for discretionary determination.

The appeal was dismissed, with costs awarded to the appellants.

The appellant challenged an appellate ruling that had quashed a labour board decision and remitted labour code complaints for reconsideration.

The Court held the board had considered the relevant statutory provisions and factual record, and its interpretation was reasonable and entitled to deference on judicial review.

It reaffirmed that administrative decision-makers need not expressly address every possible interpretive nuance raised by parties.

Viewed as a whole and in light of the record, the board's reasons met the reasonableness standard.

The appeal was allowed, the appellate judgment was set aside, and the trial-level judgment was restored with costs.