Executive Summary: Key Legal and Evidentiary Issues

• Leave to appeal turned on whether the Superior Court used the correct standard of review (correctness vs. reasonableness) when overturning the Tribunal administratif du Québec (TAQ).
• The core evidentiary dispute concerned whether a confidential Conseil du trésor decision (CT 220019) could be compelled in litigation despite a public-interest objection under article 283 C.p.c.
• The case raises how far public interest immunity can shield Cabinet-level documents when they are arguably central to resolving a high-value expropriation indemnity dispute.
• The relevance and timing of the request for disclosure (after 15 days of hearing before the TAQ) is key to assessing proportionality and fairness in complex administrative proceedings.
• The Court of Appeal identified a broader, systemic issue about doctrinal “hesitations on the standard of review” for judicial review of evidentiary rulings by administrative tribunals.
• Procedural rules on written advocacy (exposés instead of full factums) and strict consequences for missed filing deadlines (caducity/forclusion) play a significant role in how the appeal on these issues will be conducted.

Facts and procedural background

167465 Canada Inc. operates a hotel near Montréal-Trudeau International Airport. The dispute arises from an expropriation project tied to the redevelopment of the Dorval interchange. As part of that broader infrastructure scheme, there had been a possibility that a nearby railway line would be moved closer to the hotel. This potential relocation raised serious noise concerns for the business.
In anticipation of the railway being brought nearer, the hotel undertook major renovation works that included additional soundproofing. Approximately CAD 2.6 million was spent on these extra noise-mitigation measures, within a larger project that ultimately exceeded CAD 9 million in value. The hotel later claimed that these costs formed part of the expropriation indemnity owing for the partial taking of its land.
The Attorney General of Quebec (PGQ), representing the expropriating authority, disputed responsibility for these soundproofing expenditures. The government’s position was that the work was undertaken prematurely and at the hotel’s own initiative. In particular, it argued that the expropriation authorities had clearly indicated the hotel would be notified if and when a definitive decision was made to relocate the railway, and no such notice had been given before the hotel undertook the additional works. Ultimately, the railway realignment was abandoned. The PGQ therefore contended that it could not be held financially liable for the hotel’s noise-mitigation investments, which, in its view, were not caused by the expropriation but by the owner’s business decision.
In the course of the indemnity proceedings before the Tribunal administratif du Québec (TAQ), the hotel sought disclosure of a specific Cabinet-level decision of the Conseil du trésor: CT 220019. This Treasury Board decision related to follow-up on the management of the Dorval interchange redevelopment project and, crucially, confirmed the abandonment of the planned relocation of the railway. From the hotel’s perspective, the contents of CT 220019, together with its notes and annexes, were central to understanding the decision-making process and timing on the government side and thus to assessing responsibility for the soundproofing costs.

The public interest privilege claim and the TAQ decision

The Secretary of the Conseil du trésor resisted disclosure of CT 220019 by invoking article 283 of the Code of Civil Procedure. That provision allows the state to decline to disclose certain information where doing so would be contrary to the public interest. Relying on this article, the Secretary set out reasons why, in his view, compelling production of the Treasury Board decision would unduly compromise the public interest and the confidentiality that typically surrounds Cabinet-level decision-making.
The TAQ was not persuaded by this public interest claim. After an extensive hearing that had already stretched over 15 days, the tribunal concluded that the contents of CT 220019 were relevant to the issues it had to decide. Assessing both the need for the information in the context of the indemnity dispute and the arguments based on article 283 C.p.c., the tribunal authorized disclosure of the Treasury Board decision and ordered that CT 220019, including its notes and annexes, be produced to the hotel.

Judicial review before the Superior Court

The PGQ applied to the Superior Court for judicial review, seeking to quash the TAQ’s disclosure order. The matter came before Justice Daniel Urbas of the Superior Court (Montréal district). The key issue was whether the TAQ had erred in ordering production of the Cabinet-level document despite the state’s claim of public interest immunity under article 283.
A central point of controversy concerned the standard of review. According to what the parties had pleaded, the court should have applied a reasonableness standard to the TAQ’s decision, this being an evidentiary ruling by an administrative tribunal. The Superior Court, however, concluded that the correctness standard governed and analyzed the TAQ’s ruling on that basis. Justice Urbas held that the tribunal’s approach to the article 283 objection and to the balancing of public interest against the hotel’s evidentiary needs was wrong in law.
He therefore granted the judicial review, allowed the PGQ’s application, and annulled the TAQ’s decision ordering disclosure of CT 220019. Although the judge stated that he would have reached the same result even under a reasonableness standard, the hotel argued that his reasons did not in fact reflect a proper reasonableness analysis and that he had effectively substituted his own view for that of the tribunal.

Application for leave to appeal

167465 Canada Inc. sought leave from the Quebec Court of Appeal to challenge the Superior Court judgment. Because the underlying proceeding was a judicial review of a TAQ decision, leave to appeal is not automatic; a party must satisfy stringent criteria before the Court of Appeal will hear the case on the merits. The hotel’s application was heard by Justice Martin Vauclair J.C.A.
The applicant advanced three grounds of appeal, of which the Court of Appeal focused on two. First, it argued that the Superior Court erred by applying the correctness standard of review rather than reasonableness, contrary to the parties’ submissions and to contemporary administrative law principles governing review of tribunal decisions on evidentiary and disclosure questions. Second, it contended that even if the judge purported to apply reasonableness in the alternative, he had not in fact done so properly; in substance, the analysis remained a correctness review, failing to accord due deference to the TAQ’s discretionary assessment under article 283 C.p.c.

Key legal issues identified by the Court of Appeal

Justice Vauclair emphasized that the criteria for granting leave to appeal from judicial review judgments are “rigorous” and that such permission is not given routinely. The Court referred to recent appellate authorities underscoring this high threshold, including Thimothée v. Boyard, Fanous v. Lapointe, Beaulieu v. Perreault and Ferenda v. 9378-8263 Québec inc., all of which confirm that leave will only be granted where the proposed appeal raises issues of broad importance or clear potential error.
In this case, the Court of Appeal was satisfied that the hotel’s proposed grounds warranted further examination. The standard-of-review question—correctness versus reasonableness in the context of a tribunal’s evidentiary ruling on public interest privilege—was described as a question of importance that goes beyond the immediate controversy between the parties. Justice Vauclair noted the presence of “hesitations” on the applicable standard in such circumstances and recognized that clarifying this point would have implications for future cases involving judicial review of TAQ and other administrative tribunals.
The second issue, concerning whether the Superior Court actually carried out a proper reasonableness analysis when it said it would reach the same result under that standard, was also seen as significant. From the applicant’s perspective, the judge had effectively conducted a de novo assessment rather than asking whether the TAQ’s decision fell within a range of acceptable outcomes defensible in fact and law. The Court of Appeal accepted that this alleged misapplication of reasonableness warranted appellate scrutiny.

Procedural directions and conduct of the appeal

Having determined that the issues met the demanding leave criteria, Justice Vauclair granted permission to appeal. The Court ordered that the appeal proceed without full formal factums; instead, the parties are to file written “exposés,” a streamlined format for appellate argument governed by the Rules of the Court of Appeal of Quebec in civil matters.
The judgment specifies that each party’s written argument on the main appeal must not exceed 15 pages, excluding annexes. The hotel, as appellant, must file and serve its exposé by 29 January 2026, with up to three annexes. The Attorney General, as respondent, must file its exposé by 26 March 2026 and may add necessary supplements to the appellant’s annexes.
The Court also underscored the strict procedural consequences set out in article 376 C.p.c. If the appellant fails to file its exposé within the prescribed time, the appeal becomes caduc (lapsed) and the court clerk issues a certificate of caducity unless a judge is seized of a request for an extension. A respondent or any other party that misses its filing deadline is forclosed from later filing and cannot be heard at the hearing unless specially authorized by the Court of Appeal.
The matter has been referred to the Maître des rôles for fixing a hearing date. Each side has been allotted 45 minutes of oral argument time at the eventual hearing of the appeal. Costs of the leave application and of the forthcoming appeal are reserved, to follow the outcome of the case.

Outcome and significance

The decision of the Quebec Court of Appeal in 2025 QCCA 1555 does not resolve the underlying expropriation indemnity dispute nor does it finally determine whether CT 220019 must be disclosed. Instead, it grants 167465 Canada Inc. permission to appeal the Superior Court’s judgment that had quashed the TAQ’s disclosure order. The successful party at this stage is therefore 167465 Canada Inc., which obtained leave to challenge the judicial review ruling. No monetary award, costs, or damages were ordered in its favour in this judgment; the total amount (if any) that may ultimately be granted for indemnity or costs cannot yet be determined and will depend on the outcome of the forthcoming appeal and the underlying compensation proceedings.