Executive Summary: Key Legal and Evidentiary Issues

• Dispute over which contracting party (ambulance providers vs. public health institutions/Attorney General of Quebec) must bear maintenance and repair costs for Zoll semi-automatic defibrillator monitors (MDSA) under pre-hospital emergency services contracts.
• Interpretation of contractual provisions allocating ownership, upkeep, and repair expenses for MDSA devices made available by integrated health and social services centres (CISSS/CIUSSS) to private and cooperative ambulance services.
• Management of objections during pre-trial examinations, including when a witness may refuse to answer and when objections must simply be noted and deferred to the trial judge under article 228 C.p.c.
• Scope and limits of pre-trial discovery, particularly the breadth of relevance, proportionality, and the court’s preference for broad disclosure unless questions are clearly abusive, vexatious, or excessively burdensome.
• Treatment of privileged or confidential communications, notably exclusion of emails and attachments containing legal advice while ordering disclosure of related factual and administrative correspondence.
• Judicial emphasis on efficiency and collaboration in the exploratory phase, with the court recording and enforcing negotiated commitments to produce emails, communications, and identity of document authors rather than issuing coercive rulings.

Background and parties

The case arises from a contractual dispute in Quebec’s pre-hospital emergency services sector. A large group of private ambulance companies, cooperatives, and related pre-hospital service entities (collectively referred to as the “enterprises”, along with a cooperative and a federation that represent ambulance cooperatives and paramedics) provide ambulance and pre-hospital emergency services in different regions of Quebec. They do so under service contracts negotiated and concluded with integrated health and social services centres (CISSS/CIUSSS) and the Minister of Health, through the Fédération des coopératives des paramédics du Québec and the Corporation d’ambulance du Québec acting as representative bodies. On the other side are the Attorney General of Quebec (Procureur général du Québec, PGQ) and Santé Québec, acting on behalf of numerous CISSS and CIUSSS across the province. These public bodies are responsible for organizing and financing health and social services, including pre-hospital care, and for owning and supplying certain medical equipment used by ambulance technicians.

Contracts and equipment at issue

The dispute centres on “moniteurs défibrillateurs semi-automatiques” (MDSA), semi-automatic defibrillator monitors manufactured by Zoll Medical Corporation. The devices are ordered and delivered directly to the ambulance enterprises, but under the service contracts, the integrated health centres are the owners of the MDSA units. The contracts provide that the CISSS/CIUSSS own the MDSA devices, make them available to the ambulance enterprises, and assume responsibility for keeping them in good working order, including paying maintenance and repair costs. The ambulance enterprises use MDSA units in the course of providing emergency care through their paramedic employees, who rely on these devices as standard equipment in the delivery of pre-hospital services. At the heart of the conflict is who must bear the sums billed by Zoll for servicing, repairing, or remedying issues with these MDSA units. The enterprises contend that the contractual language is clear: since the CISSS/CIUSSS are owners and are expressly responsible for maintenance and repair, the public-sector defendants must pay these amounts. A disagreement arose when the public-sector side allegedly refused to assume the costs billed by Zoll, leaving the ambulance enterprises with charges they say fall squarely under the defendants’ obligations.

Procedural posture and legal framework

This particular judgment is not a ruling on the merits of the contractual dispute. Instead, it resolves a series of objections raised during pre-trial examinations (interrogatoires préalables) of representatives of the Minister of Health and Social Services. During these examinations, counsel for the Attorney General of Quebec objected to certain questions and to the scope of various undertakings (engagements) to produce documents or further information. The plaintiffs responded by issuing a case management notice (Avis de gestion) to have these objections decided by the Superior Court. The court, presided over by Justice Lise Bergeron, situates its analysis within article 228 of the Code of Civil Procedure (C.p.c.), which governs when objections at examinations may justify a witness’s refusal to answer. Under article 228 C.p.c., only specific categories of objections—non-compellability of the person examined, fundamental rights (including privacy), issues involving presumed irrelevant facts in certain sensitive contexts, or a question raising an important legitimate interest—allow a witness to refuse to answer pending a judicial ruling. Objections based solely on relevance generally do not allow refusal; the witness must answer, with the objection merely recorded for the trial judge. The decision also draws on leading appellate and Supreme Court authorities emphasizing that pre-trial discovery is meant to be broad and liberal in scope, promoting transparency, early clarification of issues, and efficient case management, while still subject to proportionality and protection of privileges.

Discovery principles and limits on objections

Justice Bergeron reviews case law such as Procureur général du Canada c. Signature on the Saint-Laurent Group, Pétrolière Impériale c. Jacques, Groupe Hexagone, and others to reiterate that objections based solely on alleged irrelevance should rarely halt an answer. The guiding principle is that pre-trial examinations and document disclosure should be interpreted broadly and liberally to facilitate full access to the relevant facts and evidence. However, the right to discovery is not unlimited. The court recalls that proportionality—both in cost and burden—must be respected, and that questions or requests that are clearly non-pertinent, onéreuses (onerous), dilatoires (dilatory), or vexatious can be curtailed. The judge notes that in exceptional cases, if a question is manifestly foreign to the issues and imposes an abusive burden, a witness may be allowed to refuse to answer and the objection can be upheld at the pre-trial stage. The judgment also summarizes the recognized bases for refusing disclosure: non-compellability of the person examined, protection of fundamental rights (including privacy), legitimate public-interest concerns that transcend the particular parties, and established evidentiary privileges, such as solicitor-client privilege, litigation privilege, and settlement privilege. The party invoking such a privilege bears the burden of proving its application. Overall, the court emphasises that trial judges and case management judges must balance two objectives: efficiency in the justice system and the search for truth. This balance underlies decisions on how far discovery should go and when objections may validly block a question or production request.

Specific objections and undertakings resolved

After outlining these legal principles, the court turns to a detailed, item-by-item resolution of the objections and undertakings listed in a table prepared by the plaintiffs and annexed to the judgment. Each item corresponds to an engagement code (such as EAL-1, EAL-3, EAL-5, EMP-11, EMP-12, EJFG-12, etc.) and relates to specific categories of documents or information. For one engagement (EAL-1), counsel for the Attorney General agrees to transmit the complete email in question but without attachments, thereby fulfilling the undertaking as narrowed. For another (EAL-3), the Attorney General commits to verifying, with its principals, what consultations were carried out in connection with a particular authorization mentioned in a publication and to provide resulting documents such as minutes, reports, or questionnaires, if they exist. On the crucial engagement related to communications about the MDSA contract provisions and rectifiable billing items (EAL-5), the Attorney General and Santé Québec agree to provide all existing communications between the Ministry and the CISSS/CIUSSS regarding the contractual provisions on MDSA devices and the invoicing of rectifiable elements, from the time the minimum content of the service contract was determined up to the last signature of that contract. One request (EAL-4) is expressly withdrawn by the plaintiffs at the outset of the hearing, so the court simply records its withdrawal. Regarding engagements EMP-11 and EMP-12, the Attorney General undertakes to produce emails exchanged between named officials (including Ms. Fournier, Mr. Gourdes, and Mr. Pagé) related to the drafting of a circular, again excluding any emails that contain legal opinions and attaching only those documents that do not reveal legal advice. The parties agree that EMP-12 is covered by the same solution as EMP-11.

Additional clarifications and limits to production

For a further engagement (EJFG-12), the Attorney General similarly agrees to supply emails between the same individuals concerning the drafting of the circular, under the same restriction that any communications containing legal advice are excluded, while non-privileged attachments are produced. On EMP-6, the Attorney General indicates that it has already provided the only document it holds relating to certain remittances associated with the return of MDSA devices of a particular series. Plaintiffs’ counsel acknowledges that any additional details on this issue will need to be sought directly from the manufacturer, Zoll, or from the provincial government’s acquisition agency, as appropriate, rather than from the defendants. For EAL-7, the Attorney General agrees, in the spirit of cooperation and in compliance with articles 17, 18, and 19 C.p.c., to inform the plaintiffs of the identity of the author of a document annexed to the objection table, thereby avoiding the need for further court applications on this limited point. Finally, regarding EAL-8, the Attorney General explains that the relevant email appears to have included only an .ics calendar file, but it nonetheless appears that Mr. Gourdes was the sender of that communication, which the court notes. In each instance, the judge records (“donne acte”) these commitments rather than imposing new, contested obligations, reflecting the court’s preference for negotiated, proportional solutions to discovery disputes.

Outcome and implications

In its formal conclusion, the Superior Court orders the parties to comply with all of the undertakings and agreements recorded in the judgment and specifies that this is done “sans frais de justice,” meaning no legal costs are awarded against any party. This decision therefore does not decide who is substantively right on the underlying contractual disagreement over who must pay the maintenance and repair charges billed by Zoll for the MDSA devices, nor does it resolve liability or interpret the contract clauses in a final way. Instead, it clears the way for the merits phase by ensuring that key emails, internal communications, and related documents about the drafting of the governing circulars and the negotiation and implementation of the MDSA-related contract provisions will be available to both sides, subject to well-recognized privilege protections. Because the ruling is purely procedural and focused on discovery obligations, there is no formally declared “successful party” in terms of the dispute’s substance, and no damages, costs, or other monetary relief are granted. The judgment simply enforces discovery-related commitments without awarding costs, so the total amount of monetary award, costs, or damages ordered in favor of any party in this decision is zero, and no precise amount can be determined from this ruling alone.