Executive Summary: Key Legal and Evidentiary Issues

• The appeal was decided solely on the balance-of-convenience branch of the RJR-MacDonald test, which the Court found sufficient to dispose of the matter.
• Whether a motions judge may inquire into the actual necessity or effectiveness of a government measure when weighing the public interest was the central legal question.
• A validly enacted but challenged law or order is presumed to serve the public interest, and this presumption weighs heavily in the balance of convenience.
• Evidentiary weight had to be given to the severity of a potential aircraft collision, not only its likelihood — an omission that skewed the lower court's analysis.
• Because the November 18, 2025 near-miss occurred outside SACT activities, the Federal Court discounted the Notice's broader safety rationale and misapprehended the systemic risk.
• Given the injunction's imminent expiry, the Court of Appeal declined to remit the motion and instead decided it afresh.

Facts of the case

The Minister of Transport appealed an order of the Federal Court (2026 FC 439) that had granted ITPS (Canada) Ltd. an interlocutory injunction. ITPS trains military pilots out of London International Airport (YXU), including Specialized Air Combat Training (SACT). Following a near-miss incident involving an ITPS aircraft on approach to YXU on November 18, 2025, the Minister issued a notice of restriction (the Notice) on December 19, 2025 under section 5.1 of the Aeronautics Act. The Notice, which cited that incident among others, effectively confined ITPS's SACT activities to an area near North Bay, Ontario known as CYR 599. The Federal Court's order of April 2, 2026 lifted those restrictions until the earlier of its decision on the merits of ITPS's judicial review application or July 13, 2026 — the date by which ITPS was expected to relocate its SACT activities to North Bay's Jack Garland Airport (YYB). Before the appeal was heard, a June 4, 2026 order of Justice René LeBlanc stayed the Federal Court's order, so the Notice was enforceable at the time of this appeal.

Statutory and legal framework at issue

No contractual or policy terms were in dispute; this was a regulatory matter arising under statute. The Notice was made under section 5.1 of the Aeronautics Act, R.S.C. 1985, c. A-2, which the Minister invoked to prohibit certain military aviation training except in designated areas. The governing framework was the three-part test for interlocutory injunctions from RJR-MacDonald Inc v Canada (Attorney General): a serious issue to be tried, irreparable harm, and the balance of convenience. The parties agreed that the Federal Court had identified the correct test, and the appeal was confined to the balance-of-convenience branch. Central to that branch is the principle — drawn from Harper v Canada (Attorney General) and RJR-MacDonald — that a validly enacted but challenged law or order is presumed to promote the public interest, and that an injunction suspending such a measure is presumed to harm it. To overcome that presumption, an applicant relying on the public interest must show that suspending the measure would itself provide a public benefit.

The court's reasoning and analysis

Writing for a unanimous panel, Locke J.A. found that the Federal Court had erred in weighing the public interest. He held that paragraphs 58 and 59 of the lower court's reasons strayed into an impermissible assessment of whether the Notice was actually necessary — an inquiry the Supreme Court in RJR-MacDonald had cautioned against, since a motions judge should assume that legislation aimed at the public interest has that effect. Two errors stood out. First, at paragraph 58 the Federal Court had relied on a Transport Canada internal risk assessment describing the likelihood of an incident as remote or unlikely, but it considered only that likelihood and not the severity of an incident, which the same assessment had addressed; because an aircraft collision would be a major event with grave and irremediable consequences, the court had unfairly minimized the assessment's conclusions. Second, at paragraph 59 the Federal Court had emphasized that the November 18, 2025 near-miss occurred outside SACT activities and might not have been prevented by the Notice; Locke J.A. held that this focused too narrowly on a single incident rather than on the systemic risk the Notice addressed, causing the court to misunderstand the public interest in maintaining the regulatory scheme pending judicial review.

Ruling and outcome

Having concluded that the Federal Court understated the effect of its order on the public interest, the Court of Appeal allowed the appeal and set aside that order. Because the injunction was due to expire no later than July 13, 2026, the panel found it impractical to remit the motion for reconsideration and instead made the decision the Federal Court should have made. Balancing the short-term harm to ITPS of conducting SACT in CYR 599 until that date against the harm to the public interest of not enforcing the Notice — and recognizing both the presumption favouring the Notice and the profound consequences a collision could bring — the Court held that the balance of convenience favoured refusing the injunction, and it dismissed ITPS's motion. The Minister of Transport was the successful party, and the Court awarded costs to the Minister both in the Court of Appeal and in the Federal Court; the reasons do not specify a dollar figure, so the monetary amount is not stated.