Executive Summary: Key Legal and Evidentiary Issues

• At the heart of this appeal is whether the Parks Branch of the Manitoba government had statutory authority under The Provincial Parks Act to regulate QMC's use and occupation of land at the Irgon mine site, a portion of which falls within Nopiming Provincial Park and is subject to mining claim MB3902 recorded under The Mines and Minerals Act.
   
• QMC challenged the validity of a removal condition attached to its 2023 exploration permit — effective April 1, 2023 to March 31, 2024 — requiring it to remove its equipment from the park prior to the permit's expiry, arguing the Parks Branch lacked legislative authority to impose such a condition.
   
• Following QMC's non-compliance with the removal condition, Sergeant Sitko of the Conservation Officer Service issued a removal order on June 27, 2024 under section 33 of the Park Activities Regulation, which QMC contended was invalid and sought to quash by way of certiorari.
   
• Central to the statutory interpretation dispute was whether sections 74(1) and 147(1)(b) of the Mines Act, which grant mineral access rights to claim holders, displaced the Parks Branch's continuing authority under section 15 of the Parks Act to regulate land use and occupation once a mining claim is recorded within a provincial park.
   
• QMC also sought mandamus compelling Manitoba to determine its 2024 mineral exploration permit application, contending that section 7(4) of the Permits and Leases Regulation vested exclusive authority over applications involving mineral rights in a provincial park in the Director of Mines rather than the Director of Parks.
   
• Both the reviewing judge and the Court of Appeal applied the reasonableness standard of review, finding the Parks Branch had reasonably interpreted its statutory authority and that its decisions to issue the removal order and refuse a new permit were reasonable.
   

Facts of the case

QMC Quantum Minerals Corp. holds mining claim MB3902, a lithium exploration and development project known as the Irgon mine site, a portion of which lies within Nopiming Provincial Park in Manitoba. Since 2008 — though not continuously, due to various compliance concerns — QMC has held successive one-year exploration permits for the mining claim, all issued by the Parks Branch of the Department of Environment and Climate Change (formerly the Parks and Natural Areas Branch of the Department of Sustainable Development).

The 2023 exploration permit, effective from April 1, 2023 to March 31, 2024, contained several special conditions, including one requiring QMC to remove its equipment from the park prior to the permit's expiry (the removal condition). Disputes regarding equipment removal had arisen even earlier: an offence notice was issued in January 2023 for failing to comply with a removal requirement under a permit issued in 2021. Despite this history, QMC did not challenge the Parks Branch's authority to issue the 2023 exploration permit or raise any concerns about the removal condition at the time of its issuance.

On February 14, 2024, QMC filed two provincial park permit applications with the permit office manager of the Director of Mines (Armstrong): one for a 2024 exploration permit and one for road maintenance to the Irgon mine site. On February 15, 2024, Armstrong advised QMC that the Irgon mine site was in a provincial park and that his office did not administer such permits, referring QMC to the Parks Branch. QMC resubmitted the 2024 permit applications to the Parks Branch on February 21, 2024.

On March 19, 2024, before the 2023 exploration permit expired, the regional park specialist (Dean) emailed QMC to remind it of the removal condition, advising that any future permit issued by the Parks Branch would authorize only equipment necessary for specific exploration activities and would not permit equipment storage. An offence notice for non-compliance with the 2023 exploration permit was issued on April 5, 2024. Discussions between the Parks Branch and QMC continued between February 2024 and June 2024 without resolution.

On January 7, 2025, Dean advised QMC that the Parks Branch would not issue a permit while the removal order remained outstanding. QMC then submitted two additional road-repair permit applications in an effort to prevent Manitoba from removing the equipment. A draft application was provided to Dean on January 27, 2025; Dean advised it must specify that the purpose of the proposed roadwork was to facilitate the equipment's removal and include a proposed completion date. QMC submitted a final road-repair application on January 28, 2025, which Dean rejected on January 30, 2025, stating the Parks Branch did not support either the proposed work or the timelines indicated. QMC does not challenge these decisions. On January 31, 2025, QMC filed the application for judicial review that is the subject of this appeal.

Policy, legislative, and regulatory provisions at issue

The case required the Court to interpret the interplay between The Provincial Parks Act, CCSM c P20, and The Mines and Minerals Act, CCSM c M162, along with regulations made under each.

Section 15 of the Parks Act — the overarching land use provision — provides that no person shall use or occupy Crown lands in a provincial park except under the authority of the Act or its regulations. Section 17(1) of the Parks Act prohibits owners or occupiers from making changes in land use to provincial park lands except in accordance with the regulations. Section 8(1) of the Park Activities Regulation, Man Reg 141/96 (the Activities Regulation), prohibits any activity that "damages or alters the land or significantly interferes with the environment in a provincial park, except under the authority of a permit issued by the minister."

Section 2(1) of the Mines Act states that its object and purpose is to provide for, encourage, promote, and facilitate exploration, development, and production of minerals in Manitoba, consistent with the principles of sustainable development. Section 74(1) of the Mines Act grants a claim holder the right to enter, use, and occupy the surface of the land governed by the claim, for the purpose of prospecting or exploring for or developing, mining, or producing minerals, to the extent necessary for those purposes. However, section 74(1) is expressly subject to Part 9 of the Mines Act, which is titled "Surface Rights Use of Lands." Under that Part, section 147(1)(b) provides that entry upon Crown land within a provincial park for the purpose of exploring for, staking out, recording, or developing a claim is subject to obtaining a permit under The Provincial Parks Act. Section 147(2) further mandates that before entry, a person must obtain all approvals or authorizations required under the applicable statute and comply with their terms and conditions.

QMC also relied on section 7(4) of the Permits and Leases Regulation, Man Reg 150/96 (the Permits Regulation), which provides that applications with respect to mineral rights or surface rights of a mining claim in a provincial park shall be made to the Director of Mines, who shall submit the application to the Director of Parks for recommendation before the application is granted or rejected. QMC argued this provision vested exclusive jurisdiction over the 2024 exploration permit application in the Director of Mines.

The removal order of June 27, 2024 was issued by Sergeant Sitko of the Conservation Officer Service pursuant to sections 33(1) and 33(2) of the Activities Regulation, which govern abandoned vehicles and objects and authorize an officer to issue an order requiring the owner or operator of an item to move it to a location determined by the officer within a specified time period.

Reasoning and analysis

The Court of Appeal, per Cameron JA (Simonsen and Edmond JJA concurring), applied the reasonableness standard of review to the Parks Branch's interpretation of its statutory authority. The Court held that the questions of whether the Parks Branch had statutory authority to issue the 2023 exploration permit and the subsequent removal order, and whether to refuse a further permit in the absence of compliance with the removal condition, engaged the Parks Branch's interpretation of its own enabling legislation and its exercise of discretion — matters attracting reasonableness review under Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration) v Vavilov, 2019 SCC 65.

The Court found that the plain meaning of section 74(1) of the Mines Act, read together with section 147(1)(b) of Part 9, confirms that a claim holder may occupy and use the surface of land in a provincial park for mineral exploration and development only where the required authorizations under the Parks Act are obtained and only to the extent necessary for those activities. The Court rejected QMC's argument that section 147 of the Mines Act applies only to pre-recording activities and that the Parks Branch's authority to regulate use of the mining claim ceased once the claim was recorded. Accepting QMC's interpretation would render sections 147(1) and 147(2) redundant in relation to section 61(1), which already governs pre-claim activities, and would effectively remove the mining claim from provincial park regulation once a claim was recorded — a result inconsistent with the plain meaning of the statutory provisions and the objectives of the Parks Act.

The Court also rejected QMC's common law argument based on R v Tener, 1985 CanLII 76 (SCC), that its mineral access rights under section 74(1) of the Mines Act — including the right to use the surface of the land — are inseparable from its mineral rights such that a parks permit cannot restrict the surface-use component. The Court agreed with Manitoba that the scope of QMC's rights is defined by statute rather than by common law principles alone, and that section 15 of the Parks Act provides the overarching authority to regulate the use or occupation of Crown lands within provincial parks without distinguishing between those concepts. The Court noted that QMC was, in substance, using the Irgon mine site to store equipment, and that allowing QMC to leave the equipment on the site would undermine the purpose of the Parks Act of preserving provincial park lands.

On the section 7(4) issue, the Court agreed with the reviewing judge that section 7(4) of the Permits Regulation applies only to mineral rights and surface rights as defined in the Mines Act, not to mineral access rights — the distinct category of rights QMC possesses by virtue of its mining claim. Mineral rights and surface rights are distinct interests in land under the Mines Act, and section 7(4) does not extend to mineral access rights. Accordingly, section 7(4) does not displace the Parks Branch's overarching authority under section 15 of the Parks Act to regulate the use and occupation of land within a provincial park. The Irgon mine site falls within an area classified both as a "natural park" under section 7(2)(b) of the Parks Act and as a resource management area under section 7(3)(c), the purpose of which is to "permit commercial resource development or extraction in a manner that does not compromise the main purpose of the park classification." This classification, the Court held, did not displace the Parks Branch's regulatory authority.

As to the removal order itself, the Court agreed with the reviewing judge that sections 33(1) and 33(2) of the Activities Regulation authorized its issuance. QMC's argument that those provisions, aimed at recreational items such as abandoned vehicles, were not intended to apply to industrial equipment used in mineral exploration was rejected. The Court noted that section 8(2) of the Activities Regulation lists activities requiring a permit in a provincial park, including those commonly associated with mineral exploration such as road construction, excavation, blasting, and tree clearing, confirming that the Activities Regulation was not intended to be limited to recreational activities. The Court further accepted Sitko's assessment, adopted by the reviewing judge, that the access road, when frozen, was sufficiently passable for removal of the equipment without incurring additional road repair costs, thus rejecting QMC's contention that compliance was impractical.

Ruling and overall outcome

The Manitoba Court of Appeal dismissed QMC's appeal in its entirety, with costs awarded to the respondent, the Government of Manitoba. Cameron JA, with Simonsen and Edmond JJA concurring, held that the reviewing judge did not err in applying the reasonableness standard to the Parks Branch's decisions, and that the Parks Branch had reasonably interpreted its home statute and regulations. The decisions to issue the removal order and to refuse to issue the 2024 exploration permit in the absence of compliance with the removal condition in the 2023 exploration permit were found to be reasonable. No exact monetary amount was specified in the judgment; costs were ordered in favour of Manitoba, but the quantum was not determined in the decision.