Executive Summary: Key Legal and Evidentiary Issues

• Extinction of acquired rights (droits acquis) to a non-agricultural use on a designated agricultural lot under articles 101, 101.1 and 102 LPTAA, based on change of use and return to vegetative cover.
• Weight given by the Tribunal administratif du Québec (TAQ) to contemporaneous documentary evidence (the 2002 authorization form declaring “exploitation forestière”) over later sworn statements and testimony about recreational/villégiature use.
• Characterisation of sylviculture as an agricultural activity within the meaning of the LPTAA, transforming the existing vegetative cover into “agricultural” use and triggering extinction of prior non-agricultural rights.
• Assessment of whether limited, seasonal hunting and the presence of minor anthropic objects can maintain a non-agricultural, recreational/villégiature right of use.
• Application of the strict test for “serious questions” justifying permission to appeal TAQ decisions in agricultural land protection matters under article 159 of the Loi sur la justice administrative.
• Impact of long-standing knowledge of non-conformity and failed attempts at municipal regularisation (PPCMOI) on the court’s evaluation of whether granting permission to appeal is in the interests of justice.

Facts and background

The dispute concerns lot 6 180 702 of the Québec cadastre, located in the municipality of Fortierville, within a designated agricultural region. In principle, any non-agricultural use of land in such a zone requires prior authorization from the Commission de protection du territoire agricole du Québec (the Commission) under the Loi sur la protection du territoire et des activités agricoles (LPTAA). On 9 November 1978, when the LPTAA became applicable to the lot, it was being used as a gravel and sand pit (gravière-sablière). This non-agricultural, resource-extraction use was accepted by the Commission as a lawful acquired right (droit acquis) under article 101 LPTAA. Over time, the original owner stopped operating the pit. Between roughly 1980 and 1999, the lot’s use shifted away from extraction to recreational/villégiature purposes, including activities like astronomy. The Commission did not contest that, during this period, the acquired right to a non-agricultural use continued, now expressed through recreational occupation rather than the initial industrial use. The critical period begins when Mr. and Mrs. Gagnon-Doyon purchased the lot on 13 May 1999 and ended when they sold it five years later, on 13 May 2003. Their pattern of use, and how it should be legally characterized, lies at the centre of the evidentiary debate. Gino Poitras later acquired the property and developed it for villégiature and agrotourism: multiple seasonal trailers (about eight), a sugar-shack style reception hall, and a swimming pool. The Commission eventually viewed these developments as unauthorized non-agricultural expansion on protected farmland.

Regulatory framework and policy terms

The LPTAA establishes a strict regime for protecting agricultural land. Article 26 generally prohibits non-agricultural uses of land in a designated agricultural zone without the Commission’s authorization. Chapter VII of the LPTAA creates “acquired rights” where a lot was already in non-agricultural use when the law took effect. Article 101 allows a person, without Commission authorization, to alienate, subdivide, and use a lot for a non-agricultural purpose to the extent that such a use or a related permit already existed when the LPTAA’s authorization requirement became applicable to that lot. This right is limited to the portion of the lot actually used (or permitted) for non-agricultural purposes at the critical date. With the 2001 introduction of article 101.1, the legislature further tightened the regime: even where an acquired right exists, no one may add a new principal non-agricultural use or modify the existing non-agricultural use to another non-agricultural use on the protected surface, without the Commission’s authorization. In parallel, article 102 governs the extinction of acquired rights. It provides that the right survives mere interruption or abandonment of the non-agricultural use but is extinguished if the surface on which the right rests is left under vegetative cover (couverture végétale) for more than one year. Québec appellate and Supreme Court jurisprudence, notably the 1989 Veilleux, Gauthier and Venne trilogy and the Court of Appeal’s 1990 St-Louis decision, emphasizes that non-agricultural acquired rights must be continuous, lawful, tangible, effective and up to date, and that once the non-agricultural use is abandoned, any continued or renewed vegetative cover can itself acquire the character of “agricultural” for purposes of article 102.

Administrative proceedings before the Commission and TAQ

On 14 November 2013, the Commission sent a notice under article 14.1 LPTAA to Gino Poitras. It advised that it intended to issue an order under article 14 because he was allegedly contravening the LPTAA by using the lot for recreational, villégiature and agrotourism purposes, despite the land’s agricultural zoning. Mr. Poitras responded that the lot benefited from an acquired right to a non-agricultural use under article 101. The Commission accepted that an acquired right existed in 1978, tied to the gravel-and-sand operation, and that it had later been expressed through a recreational/villégiature use. However, it concluded that the right had since been extinguished under article 102 because the non-agricultural use had not continued uninterrupted and the relevant surface had been left under vegetative cover for over a year, reflecting a return to agricultural character. On 1 April 2022, the Commission issued a formal order directing Mr. Poitras to cease the current non-agricultural use. This included removing the recreational trailers, demolishing the sugar-shack reception building, and eliminating the pool. Relying on his asserted acquired rights, Mr. Poitras contested the order before the Tribunal administratif du Québec (TAQ), section du territoire et de l’environnement. The TAQ heard the matter de novo, including expert evidence on aerial photography to identify human-made (anthropic) objects and the extent and nature of vegetative cover over the years.

Evidence about use and vegetative cover between 1999 and 2003

The TAQ accepted that up to 1999, the lot’s acquired non-agricultural use had persisted: first as a gravière-sablière, then as recreational/villégiature. The controversy focused on how the Gagnon-Doyon couple actually used the land from their purchase in May 1999 to at least June 2003. Mr. Poitras argued that they had continued the villégiature pattern by placing a trailer or mobile home on the lot and shifting from astronomy to hunting as the primary recreational activity. He minimized the significance of any agricultural-type activity and stressed that structures were not essential to maintaining an acquired non-agricultural right. The Commission countered that the Gagnon-Doyons used the land for artisanal sylviculture, that is, small-scale forestry, which the LPTAA expressly defines as agriculture. Its central piece of documentary evidence was a 29 June 2002 authorization application form in which the couple themselves indicated that the lot was used for “exploitation forestière” and sought authorization to construct a forest shelter. To clarify physical conditions on the ground, both sides retained experts who analyzed aerial photographs. One set of opinions aimed to identify anthropic objects (such as structures, clearings, or trails) and another to quantify vegetative cover over the lot. The TAQ weighed the competing expert opinions and took into account more recent photographs from 6 June 2003 that showed almost the entire area vegetated, apart from ruts along the access road. Those June 2003 images, in the TAQ’s view, corroborated the couple’s own 2002 description of the lot as used for forestry, with a near-complete vegetative cover consistent with sylviculture rather than intensive recreational occupation.

TAQ’s findings on acquired rights and extinction

In its 2025 decision, the TAQ gave significant probative weight to the statements the Gagnon-Doyons made in the 2002 authorization form, preferring them over later sworn declarations and in-person testimony that omitted mention of forestry practices. It reasoned that while there was no evidence of cultivation of the soil in the usual sense, sylviculture is explicitly treated as agriculture under the LPTAA, and that the couple’s own description of their activity as “exploitation forestière” accurately captured their effective use of the lot. The TAQ found that there were no meaningful recreational/villégiature activities beyond seasonal hunting, and that the mere presence of a few indistinct anthropic objects and some mowed grass did not prove a sufficiently characterized recreational use capable of maintaining an acquired right. Occasional or seasonal hunting, the tribunal stressed, is not an “effective” non-agricultural use capable of creating or preserving an acquired right; otherwise, the presence of numerous hunters across agricultural territory during hunting season would systematically generate non-agricultural rights on large swathes of farmland, in direct contradiction with the LPTAA’s purpose. Turning to article 102, the TAQ accepted the expert analysis and the 2003 photographs showing that approximately 2.2 hectares of the lot—the area benefiting from the original non-agricultural right—had been left under vegetative cover for more than a year following the shift to sylvicultural use. Drawing on the Court of Appeal’s reasoning in St-Louis, it held that once the non-agricultural use was abandoned in favour of an agricultural use, the existing vegetative cover acquired a new legal quality as “agricultural”, satisfying the statutory condition of leaving the land under vegetative cover and thereby extinguishing the acquired right.

Application for permission to appeal to the Court of Québec

Dissatisfied with the TAQ’s analysis, Mr. Poitras sought permission from the Cour du Québec to appeal the 2025 TAQ decision under article 159 of the Loi sur la justice administrative, which allows appeals in agricultural land protection matters only “sur permission d’un juge” where the questions raised should properly be submitted to the Court. He advanced four proposed questions framed as mixed errors of law and fact: the TAQ’s reliance on the limited number of anthropic objects visible in 1999; its conclusion that the only effective use in 2002 was forest exploitation, with hunting unable to maintain a non-agricultural right; its alleged inference of a loss of rights from the mere filing of the 2002 authorization request; and its finding of a return to vegetative cover over 2.2 hectares for more than a year, extinguishing the acquired right under article 102. In support of permission, he invoked the traditional “serious question” criteria drawn from the Windsor jurisprudence, such as alleged determinative factual errors, omissions in the analysis of key evidence, and the significant impact of the decision on his activities and investments on the lot. He argued that these factors, taken together, raised issues that warranted appellate scrutiny.

Court of Québec’s analysis of the proposed errors

The Court of Québec examined each of the four proposed questions against the restrictive standard for granting leave. On the first, it held that the paragraph of the TAQ decision challenged by Mr. Poitras, when read in context, referred only to the Gagnon-Doyon period (1999-2003) and explained why the TAQ found insufficient evidence of recreational/villégiature activity then, not a misunderstanding of the earlier 1980-1999 villégiature period which everyone accepted. On the second, the Court emphasized that the TAQ had properly considered the evidence of occupation and used it to distinguish between full-fledged recreational use and limited, seasonal hunting. When paragraphs 163, 168 and 169 of the TAQ decision are read together, they show a coherent reasoning: the couple’s explicit description of “exploitation forestière” established agricultural use, and the sporadic hunting activity, even if linked to a trailer or mobile home, was not of a nature or intensity to preserve a non-agricultural right in a protected agricultural zone. On the third question, the Court rejected the premise that the TAQ had treated the 2002 authorization application as a renunciation of acquired rights. Instead, it accepted the TAQ’s own characterization: the form was used as a contemporaneous declaration shedding light on the effective use at the time, not as a legal waiver. The TAQ had expressly stated that it did not need to rule on the circumstances surrounding the Commission’s refusal of that authorization, focusing instead on the couple’s description of their own activities. On the fourth question, regarding vegetative cover, the Court noted that the TAQ had carefully reviewed the expert evidence and aerial photographs and had explicitly anchored its reasoning in the St-Louis precedent. Once the lot was being used for sylviculture, the vegetative cover took on an agricultural character, and its persistence for more than a year over the 2.2-hectare area satisfied article 102’s condition for extinction of the acquired right. The Court saw no manifest or determinative factual error in this appreciation of the evidence.

Seriousness of the questions and broader interests of justice

Looking beyond the four points, the Court assessed whether the identified issues raised a question of principle transcending the interests of the parties or revealed a clear, flagrant injustice amounting to a denial of justice—thresholds that recent case law has associated with “serious” questions justifying permission to appeal from TAQ decisions. It stressed that the law governing acquired rights in agricultural zoning is well settled. The TAQ had applied the Supreme Court’s trilogy and the St-Louis principles to a specific fact pattern, in a decision that was reasoned and intelligible. What Mr. Poitras sought, in substance, was a wholesale re-evaluation of the evidence to obtain a different factual conclusion on whether recreational use persisted and whether vegetative cover extinguished his rights. That is not the function of an appeal court at the permission stage. The Court also noted that even if permission were granted and an appeal hypothetically succeeded on the narrow acquired-rights point, the TAQ would still need to consider several other unresolved issues raised by the Commission: whether the villégiature use was lawful as of 21 June 2001 when article 101.1 came into force; whether the intensity and character of use had changed so dramatically between 2001 and 2013 as to constitute an impermissible new non-agricultural use; and whether the absence of a formal declaration of acquired rights for building permits meant that several structures were, independently of acquired rights, in breach of the LPTAA. These outstanding questions underscored that a successful appeal on one point would not necessarily lead to validation of the current non-agricultural use.

Outcome and parties’ positions

In its conclusion, the Court of Québec refused to grant permission to appeal the TAQ decision. It held that the issues raised by Mr. Poitras did not meet the seriousness threshold under article 159 of the Loi sur la justice administrative. The Court emphasized that the TAQ’s findings about the extinguishing of acquired non-agricultural rights through sylvicultural use and prolonged vegetative cover rested on a careful, fact-specific assessment of the evidence, not on any clear legal misinterpretation. It also stressed that Mr. Poitras had long been aware of the non-conforming nature of his use: the Commission had warned him as early as November 2003 that using a mobile home on the lot violated the LPTAA and reiterated in November 2013 that the then-current use was illegal. His subsequent attempt to regularize the situation by way of a municipal “projet particulier de construction, de modification ou d’occupation d’un immeuble” (PPCMOI) had failed. Against this backdrop, the Court was not persuaded that, at this late stage, granting leave to appeal would serve the interests of justice. The final judgment therefore rejects the application for permission to appeal, with costs. This means that the Commission de protection du territoire agricole du Québec is the successful party, and its position—together with the TAQ’s confirmation of the Commission’s 2022 order to cease the non-agricultural use—remains in force. The decision orders costs (“frais de justice”) against Gino Poitras but does not specify any particular monetary amount, so the total quantum of costs or any related monetary award cannot be determined from the judgment.