Executive Summary: Key Legal and Evidentiary Issues

• Validity of the tax authority’s seizure of cash and jewelry located in a safe at the debtor’s mother’s residence, following a judgment based on a tax debt certificate.
• Rebuttal of the civil law presumption that possession equals ownership, where the mother and sister claimed the seized cash and jewelry as their property.
• Assessment of credibility of the third-party opposants, given contradictions between their sworn declarations and in-court testimony about who owned the money and how it was accumulated.
• Inference, through circumstantial and financial evidence, that the cash likely belonged to the tax debtor, not the mother or nephew, including analysis of income, lifestyle, and unexplained transfers.
• Consideration of the debtor’s broader pattern of using corporations, cash withdrawals, and dissolution of companies to avoid tax obligations and frustrate collection.
• Determination that the opposition to seizure under article 735 C.p.c. failed, allowing the tax authority to maintain the seizure and recover against its judgment, with costs against the opposants.

Factual background

Éric Barrette was pursued by the Agence du revenu du Québec (ARQ) for substantial tax debts arising from his business activities. The evidence showed that he repeatedly incorporated companies in the retail and liquidation sector, allowed them to accumulate tax arrears, failed to file income tax and sales tax returns, and then dissolved the corporations, leaving the fisc unpaid. One example, 9470-7106 Québec inc., generated about 1.42 million dollars in sales but filed no tax or income declarations. On a personal level, Barrette had already gone bankrupt twice, in 2008 and 2014, and had no known real estate assets. He was also said to be a regular gambler, both at Loto-Québec casinos and online. Against this background, the ARQ issued a certificate of debt which, when filed with the court, became enforceable. On 2 December 2025, the certificate was deposited, and by the next day a judgment condemned Barrette to pay 348,148.81 dollars plus interest to the ARQ. The agency then moved quickly to enforce the judgment. On 16 December 2025, a bailiff conducted simultaneous seizures at three locations, including the home of Barrette’s mother, Julie Ampleman, in Québec City. At that residence, the bailiff discovered two stacked safes. The upper safe was opened by Barrette’s sister, Mélissa Ampleman, using a code. Inside were keys to the lower safe, several pieces of jewelry and 6,501 dollars in small bills. The lower safe, which was said to belong to Barrette, was opened and found to be empty. Some of the jewelry in the upper safe, such as watches, clearly belonged to Barrette; the seizure of those items was not contested. Two specific pieces, however, became the subject of dispute: a small elephant pendant that Mélissa said belonged to her eight-year-old son, and another gold necklace that Julie claimed as her own.

Third-party opposition and claims to the seized property

In response to the seizure, Mélissa, acting on behalf of her minor son, filed an opposition to the seizure of the elephant pendant, alleging that it was the child’s property. Julie opposed the seizure of the other gold necklace and the 6,501 dollars in cash, claiming ownership and filing an opposition under article 735 of the Code of Civil Procedure, supported by sworn declarations from both women. At the hearing of the opposition, three witnesses testified: Julie and Mélissa Ampleman for the opposants, and Anne Morissette for the ARQ. The ARQ ultimately did not insist on maintaining the seizure of the elephant pendant or Julie’s gold necklace, effectively abandoning those aspects of the seizure. The only live issue before the court became the 6,501 dollars in cash. Under Quebec civil law, possession creates a presumption of ownership (Civil Code of Québec, article 928). Since the money was found in a safe within Julie’s home, she was prima facie presumed to be the owner. However, that presumption can be rebutted by evidence, including presumptions drawn from facts and circumstances. The case thus turned on whether the ARQ could overcome the presumption in favor of Julie and show that, in reality, the funds belonged to Barrette.

Evidentiary contradictions and financial context

The court carefully examined the evidence presented by the opposants and the ARQ. In their sworn declarations, the Ampleman women stated that the seized 6,501 dollars belonged to Julie. At the hearing, however, their story changed: they testified that 2,000 dollars of the total actually belonged to Mélissa’s minor son, the same child who owned the elephant pendant. According to this new explanation, the boy had accumulated the 2,000 dollars by collecting and selling cans, and Mélissa had not yet had the opportunity to deposit the funds in his account. While it was true the child had a school savings account that could receive deposits, this oral evidence directly contradicted their sworn written statements. The court found that the discrepancy undermined their credibility. As for the remaining 4,100 dollars, Julie claimed it was her money set aside to pay municipal taxes, camping lot fees and home repair costs. She testified that she had been receiving only work-accident related benefits as income for at least four years, with annual reported income ranging from about 23,605 dollars in 2023 to around 28,000 dollars in 2024. Despite that modest income, she said she supplemented her earnings by performing undeclared housecleaning work for 80 dollars per month. The court was skeptical. Given that she had been declared disabled by the workplace safety and insurance authority and had difficulty walking, it found it hard to believe that she could both perform enough cleaning work to accumulate a significant cash reserve and meet all of her household obligations, all while living with her daughter, her son and another person. The ARQ also produced banking evidence showing that, in a three-month period in 2024, Julie had received transfers totaling 7,000 dollars from Barrette through the account of one of his companies, Entrepôt Liquidation extrême. When questioned, Julie explained this as a loan she had made to her son. The court found that explanation implausible, given her limited annual income and fixed expenses, and in light of the debtor’s own pattern of making large cash withdrawals. The agency showed that, between January and May 2025, Barrette had withdrawn 206,424 dollars in cash from Entrepôt Liquidation extrême, and in May 2025 alone he took 45,000 dollars. This suggested that he had abundant access to cash and did not need to borrow from his mother.

Assessment of presumptions of ownership and debtor’s modus operandi

On the legal side, the court started from the presumption of ownership arising from Julie’s possession of the funds, but emphasized that such a presumption can be rebutted by contrary evidence and reasonable inferences. It looked at the totality of circumstances: the contradictory versions of the Ampleman women; the modest, disability-based income declared by Julie; the improbability of her being able to lend substantial sums to her son while also keeping thousands in cash at home; and the pattern of financial transfers from one of Barrette’s companies to her. The court also considered the broader modus operandi of Barrette. His businesses generated large revenues but systematically failed to meet tax obligations, then dissolved, leaving unpaid liabilities. He frequently operated in cash and used company accounts to withdraw substantial amounts for himself. In the very safe where the 6,501 dollars was found, he had hidden his personal jewelry, which the ARQ seized and whose seizure was not opposed. According to the testimony, he had placed those items in his mother’s safe because he feared theft or retaliation from people who believed he had defrauded them, and sometimes spent nights at her home to avoid reprisals. The court noted that Barrette owned the lower, separate safe in the same location, which was empty at the time of the seizure. If only the jewelry had belonged to him, he could have kept it in his own safe, clearly separating it from money that supposedly belonged to his mother. Instead, the cash and his jewelry were together in the same upper safe controlled by his sister, with the lower safe left empty. This fact pattern supported the inference that Barrette had also placed his cash in the upper safe as part of the same fear-driven hiding strategy.

Outcome and amount in favor of the successful party

Putting these elements together, the court concluded that the presumption that Julie owned the cash was effectively rebutted. The more probable explanation was that the 6,501 dollars belonged to Barrette and had been placed in the safe alongside his jewelry. The contradictions in the Ampleman women’s declarations, the improbability of Julie’s claimed savings and “loan” to her son, the substantial transfers from Barrette’s company, and the debtor’s overall cash-based modus operandi all pointed in the same direction. As a result, the court rejected the third-party opposition brought by Julie and Mélissa under article 735 C.p.c., dismissed their revendication of the seized funds, and maintained the ARQ’s seizure. The successful party in this case is the Agence du revenu du Québec, which already held a judgment condemning Éric Barrette to pay 348,148.81 dollars plus interest, and which is now entitled to apply the seized 6,501 dollars in cash toward that tax debt; the court also awarded costs in its favor, but the exact monetary amount of those costs is not specified in the decision.