Executive Summary: Key Legal and Evidentiary Issues

• Characterization of the activities on the site as an “exploitation d’une carrière” versus exempt earthworks to expand a wood yard for a sawmill.
• Interpretation and narrow application of the regulatory exception for excavations to establish or enlarge the foundations or “emprise” of a construction, and whether a wood storage yard qualifies as a “construction.”
• Proof of tonnage of aggregates transported off site, including the evidentiary weight of the operator’s own declarations and later camera-based monitoring tied to a municipal presumption of truck weights.
• Legally sufficient basis for using extrapolations versus prescribed verification mechanisms in the municipal by-law when computing the quarry charge for periods without camera data.
• Allocation of debtor status under the Loi sur les compétences municipales between the landowner and the commercial operator, based on who actually “exploits” the quarry and reaps the revenues.
• Impact (or lack thereof) of CPTAQ and MELCC authorizations and an “Avis d’exemption” on the separate municipal regime of rights payable by quarry operators and on the court’s jurisdiction.

Factual background of the dispute

La Municipalité du Canton de Potton sued two related entities, Bois Acer LLC (the owner) and Bois Acer Inc. (the occupant), before the Civil Division of the Cour du Québec to recover quarry operator’s fees under articles 78.1 and following of the Loi sur les compétences municipales (L.c.m.) for the period from October 2020 to November 2025. The municipality originally claimed 165,418.35?$, including interest, as “droits payables par l’exploitant d’une carrière” for materials extracted and transported off the site. The dispute centred on two adjoining lots acquired by Bois Acer LLC in 2014 and 2018, previously owned by Bois Champigny inc. One lot contained the sawmill and its buildings, while the other had been commercially operated as a quarry by Les Excavations Guy Éthier inc. between about 2013 and 2018, with quarry dues previously paid to the municipality. The occupant, Bois Acer Inc., operated a hardwood lumber business on the site with export markets in Asia. To support its activities, it pursued a long-running project to enlarge a wood storage yard on the former quarry lot. CPTAQ decisions in 2011 and 2012, later renewed in 2018, had authorized expansion of the wood yard and evacuation of excess materials, and in December 2019 the MELCC granted an authorization for crushing and screening equipment, including drilling and blasting, followed by an “Avis d’exemption” in March 2021 for certain crushing and screening operations in the environmental law context. In practice, Bois Acer Inc. entered into verbal arrangements with third-party contractors to perform blasting and crushing and, from October 2020 onward, began selling the resulting aggregates. It admitted that extraction, crushing and storage of materials produced aggregates that were ultimately sold to third-party buyers, with trucks possibly circulating on municipal roads. The evidence showed that between October and December 2020 alone, roughly 45,000 metric tonnes were removed from the site, and sales continued until 2025, generating over two million dollars in revenue. Initially, the occupant filed quarry declarations with the municipality, but after being advised to contest its quarry status, it stopped reporting. The municipality then installed a camera-based monitoring system through a consultant to capture each loaded truck leaving the site, and used the municipal by-law’s presumptions of tonnage per truck type to reconstruct the quantities transported off site. By the end of the project, in early 2023, the physical work to enlarge the wood yard was completed, with flattened extraction areas now used for log and wood storage. Some aggregate piles remained on site, partly for internal use and partly for sale, and the occupant had even entered into an agreement with Domtar to store wood on the enlarged area.

Regulatory and statutory framework

The municipality relied on the regime of rights imposed on quarry and sand pit operators in articles 78.1 and following of the L.c.m., complemented by its own Règlement numéro 2008-363, which created a special fund to finance road repair and maintenance affected by heavy truck traffic linked to quarrying. Under the statute and regulation, a right is payable when four cumulative conditions are met: (1) a site is operated as a “carrière ou sablière” on the municipal territory; (2) surface mineral substances, as defined by the Loi sur les mines or similar recycled materials, are transported off site; (3) those materials are susceptible to transit on municipal roads; and (4) no statutory exemption applies (for example, certain peat, some industrial uses, or materials already subject to the charge at another site). The central definitional issue was whether the operation fell within the notions of “carrière” or “sablière” under article 1 of the Règlement sur les carrières et sablières (R.c.s.). That regulation covers any quarry or sand pit exploited for commercial or industrial purposes, to fulfil contractual obligations, or for road and similar construction, and defines a quarry as a place where consolidated surface minerals are exploited and a sand pit as a place where non-consolidated surface minerals are exploited from natural deposits. The same provision also contains key exceptions: it states that excavations and other works done “en vue d’établir ou d’agrandir l’emprise ou les fondations de toute construction ou de tout terrain de jeux, parc municipal ou stationnement,” and certain agricultural activities, are not considered operation of a quarry or sand pit. The defence’s strategy was to bring the works within this exception, arguing that all the excavation and aggregate handling were ancillary to the expansion of a wood yard for the sawmill, which they sought to characterize as a “construction” whose footprint was being enlarged. The court, however, applied a broad and purposive interpretation of municipal enabling legislation and of the R.c.s., consistent with case law under the L.c.m. and the Loi sur la qualité de l’environnement, while giving a restrictive reading to exceptions. It held that “construction” in this context means the erection of a structure or building and does not cover simply levelling and enlarging a surface area for storage. It noted that the exceptions for playfields, parks and parking lots are listed exhaustively; if the legislature had wanted to exclude storage yards, it would have said so expressly. The court also emphasized that the exception is intended for limited, time-bound preparatory works for a defined construction project, not for long-term, large-scale extraction that becomes a principal commercial activity.

Analysis of quarry status and the exemption argument

On the evidence, the court found that all the elements of a quarry operation were met. First, the occupant’s activities clearly involved extraction, blasting, crushing and screening of consolidated surface mineral substances on a fixed site, with distinct zones for extraction and processing and on-site equipment including a truck scale. Second, the products were divided into multiple categories of aggregates, from rock dust to larger stones, with a formal price list and invoices to buyers, including Les Excavations Guy Éthier, demonstrating structured commercial exploitation and contracts of sale. Third, the parties’ own admissions recognized that aggregates were being produced and resold to third parties who might travel on roads in the municipality or neighbouring municipalities. Against this backdrop, the court rejected the attempt to shield the operation under the exception for establishing or enlarging the “emprise” or foundations of a construction. It highlighted that the enlargement process had unfolded over more than a decade, starting with Champigny’s initial authorizations in 2011 and continuing under the new owner without a concrete, time-bounded construction project. No building foundations or specific structures had been erected on the excavated area, and the immediate and dominant objective had become the extraction and commercial sale of aggregates, which generated more than two million dollars in revenue. The court drew on prior administrative and judicial decisions, such as Richard Capuano and Québec c. Dickie, to affirm that the exception covers only punctual, limited works closely tied to the foundations or footprint of a defined construction. It stressed that a yard expansion to create more storage surface is conceptually closer to the explicitly listed exceptions for playgrounds, parks and parking; yet even those are narrowly drawn and cannot be extended by analogy to storage yards.

Effect of CPTAQ and MELCC authorizations and the environmental exemption

The defendants placed considerable weight on the CPTAQ’s renewed authorizations to enlarge the wood yard and evacuate excess materials, and especially on the MELCC’s March 2021 “Avis d’exemption” referring to an exemption from environmental authorization under the Règlement sur l’encadrement d’activités en fonction de leur impact sur l’environnement for certain crushing and screening activities carried out in the course of construction or demolition. The Cour du Québec held that these administrative authorizations and exemptions have no effect on the separate municipal regime of quarry dues under the L.c.m. and do not affect the court’s jurisdiction. They respond to distinct objectives—protection of agricultural territory and environmental control of activities—and cannot be transposed as implicit exemptions from municipal road-use charges. The court also underscored that the R.e.a.f.i.e. exemption invoked by the MELCC applied only to crushing and screening, not to extraction, and that the chapter on “Carrières et sablières” in that regulation still referred back to the R.c.s. definition of a quarry. As the record did not include the full documents submitted to the CPTAQ and MELCC, the court further declined to assume that the factual narrative presented to those bodies matched the reality revealed at trial. In its view, these pieces of evidence could not displace the statutory criteria under the L.c.m. and R.c.s., which clearly pointed to a commercial quarry operation.

Computation of the right payable and evidentiary issues on tonnage

Once it concluded that a quarry right was exigible, the court turned to the calculation of the amount payable. Article 78.2 L.c.m. ties the right to the quantity of eligible surface mineral substances transported off the site, and article 78.3 provides for a ministerially fixed per-tonne rate, indexed annually. The municipal by-law 2008-363 operationalizes this by specifying the operator’s duty to file declarations, a system of presumed tonnage by truck type, and mechanisms for verifying the accuracy of declarations, including the possibility of municipal controls. The municipality claimed 165,418.35?$ for October 2020 to November 2025, calculated by multiplying the tonnage transported off site in each period by the applicable annual tariff per tonne and adding interest under the by-law when invoices went unpaid. For the first months (October–December 2020), the calculation relied on the operator’s own quarry declarations. For later periods, particularly from April 2021 to May 2025, the municipality used a camera system installed by a consultant, which photographed each loaded truck leaving the property. By matching the images to the categories of trucks and the presumptive tonnage per type in article 5 of the by-law, it reconstructed the total tonnage transported off site. The defence did not meaningfully contest the reliability of the camera data or the weight presumptions, and it held the detailed commercial records (scale tickets, financial statements) that could have been used to contradict the municipality’s figures but chose not to do so. The court accepted the camera-based tonnage calculations as compliant with the regulation’s verification tools for the periods in which the system was in place. However, it refused to endorse the municipality’s method for two “gap” periods: January 1 to April 19, 2021, and June 1 to November 30, 2025. For those intervals, the municipality had no declarations and no camera data, and instead extrapolated tonnage by assuming that the volumes were the same as for analogous periods in other years (January–April 2022 and June–November 2024). The court held that this extrapolation had no basis in the by-law, which requires either operator declarations or proven truck passages to apply the presumptive tonnage per load. It aligned itself with prior case law, such as Gravière M.J. Lessard, which rejected unapproved measurement techniques (photogrammetry) not contemplated in the municipal regulation. Because extrapolation fell outside the prescribed mechanisms, the claims of 6,999.28?$ for January–April 2021 and 1,541.05?$ for June–November 2025 were disallowed.

Identification of the proper debtor: owner versus operator

The action was brought against both Bois Acer LLC, as landowner, and Bois Acer Inc., as occupant and commercial operator. Under article 78.2 L.c.m. and the by-law, the right is payable by the “exploitant” of the quarry, defined in practice as the person or business that extracts or recycles the substances for sale or its own use. A guidance document from the ministère des Affaires municipales and the by-law itself make clear that a mere owner is only liable if it is also the actual operator. On the evidence, the court found that Bois Acer LLC’s role was limited to owning the lots, obtaining the CPTAQ and MELCC authorizations, and providing the site and equipment. It did not itself conduct extraction, contract for blasting or crushing, issue price lists, invoice buyers, or receive revenues from aggregate sales. Bois Acer Inc., by contrast, concluded the contracts with subcontractors (such as Benyco) for dynamiting and crushing, set aggregate prices, sold aggregates under its own name, and issued scale slips to buyers bearing the designation “Bois Acer – Carrière.” Its financial statements reflected the income from aggregate sales. The court therefore concluded that only Bois Acer Inc. met the factual and functional definition of “exploitant” and that it alone was the debtor of the quarry right. The municipality had been justified in initially suing both entities, given the opacity of their internal arrangements, but no legal basis remained to hold the owner liable once the evidence clarified the division of roles.

Outcome and monetary consequences

In the dispositif, the Cour du Québec partially upheld the municipality’s claim. It ordered Bois Acer Inc. to pay 119,929.96?$ in principal, representing the sum of the valid invoices for October–December 2020 and for those later periods where tonnage had been properly established according to the by-law, and it rejected the extrapolated portions of the claim for early 2021 and mid-to-late 2025. The court further ordered that interest run at a rate of 10% per year on each invoice from its specific due date, based on an agreed admission that this rate applied to quarry dues under the municipality’s regulatory framework, and condemned Bois Acer Inc. to pay the legal costs. The claim against Bois Acer LLC was dismissed without costs, reflecting its status as a non-operating owner. In practical terms, the case confirms that the Municipalité du Canton de Potton, as plaintiff, succeeded in enforcing its quarry operator’s rights regime against Bois Acer Inc. alone, securing an award of 119,929.96?$ in capital plus 10% annual interest on each invoice from its respective échéance, together with court costs in an amount not fixed in the judgment but recoverable under the usual costs rules.