Executive Summary: Key Legal and Evidentiary Issues

• The plaintiff seeks roughly $12,000 in damages from the Conservative Party of Canada for economic and moral losses related to a withdrawn candidacy.
• The Conservative Party denied any liability, citing the absence of a contract or binding commitment to the plaintiff.
• Disputed facts include whether party volunteers or representatives had authority to bind the Conservative Party through informal communications.
• Central to the case is whether the Conservative Party's conduct amounts to extracontractual fault under Quebec law.
• The Conservative Party sought authorization for lawyer representation under article 542 C.p.c., arguing the case raises complex legal questions.
• The court found no question of law was complex enough to justify departing from the Small Claims Division's no-lawyer rule.

Facts of the case

Oriana Ngabirano is suing the Conservative Party of Canada (PCC) for slightly more than $12,000, claiming compensation for economic and lost-opportunity losses as well as moral damages. She alleges that, based on misleading conduct and a lack of transparency from alleged PCC representatives and their public statements about her as a candidate in a riding in the Greater Montreal area, she learned suddenly and informally that she would not be running as a candidate for the PCC in the 2025 federal election. The PCC denies any responsibility, arguing there was no contract or other commitment to Ngabirano and no misleading representations by the militants involved, and it stresses that these militants are not its employees and cannot bind the party. The PCC also points to its discretionary power to accept or refuse a candidate during the nomination process. Trial on the merits was set for July 2, 2026, following a case management conference.

The motion for lawyer representation

On May 8, 2026, the PCC filed a motion seeking authorization for the parties to be represented by lawyers under article 542 of the Code of Civil Procedure (C.p.c.). Ngabirano filed opposing submissions on May 14, 2026. The Chief Judge of the Court of Quebec designated Justice Véronique Morin to hear and decide this motion under articles 68 and 542 C.p.c. The PCC argued the case raises complex legal questions, including how far a political party representative's informal communications with a potential candidate, occurring before the formal nomination process, can engage the party's extracontractual liability, and whether good-faith obligations apply to such pre-contractual dealings. The PCC further argued that proving the facts would be difficult because the plaintiff's proposed witnesses are not party employees, making it complex to establish the internal workings of a political party and its relationships with volunteers. Ngabirano countered that the dispute raises no complex legal question, since it turns only on whether the representations and information she received constitute an extracontractual fault for which the PCC is responsible.

The court's reasoning

The court explained that the Small Claims Division is meant to be more accessible to litigants, with the judge taking on the parties' fact-finding role under a framework built on the general prohibition against lawyer representation. Under article 542 C.p.c., parties may be represented by a lawyer only "exceptionally," and only with court authorization after showing the case "raises a complex question of law." The court noted that case law establishes that only a particular complexity in a legal question opens the door to lawyer representation; a file that is merely factually dense or complicated does not meet that standard, and a party's bare assertion of legal complexity is insufficient. The court must independently be satisfied of the legal complexity in light of the state of the law and existing case law. The court found that the PCC's arguments rested mainly on alleged particularities in how a political party is constituted and operates, but noted that case law already recognizes this type of organization as an association capable of being sued. As for any extracontractual or contractual liability, the court found the applicable legal questions, concerning mandate, employment contracts, or service contracts, to be ordinary questions of law, even though they require an assessment of the evidence presented at trial, which the court described as a routine exercise for any trial judge, including in the Small Claims Division.

Ruling and outcome

The court dismissed the PCC's motion for lawyer representation, finding that the legal questions raised, including the potential extracontractual liability of the PCC for the conduct of its volunteers and the application of mandate or contract principles, are ordinary points of law that do not meet the "complex question of law" threshold required by article 542 C.p.c. Ngabirano was the successful party on this motion, and the PCC's request to have both parties represented by lawyers at trial was rejected, with costs to follow the outcome of the case. This ruling does not resolve the underlying $12,000 claim, which remains to be decided at the trial then scheduled for July 2, 2026; no monetary amount was awarded or ordered in this decision.