Executive Summary: Key Legal and Evidentiary Issues

• Saskatchewan's Court of King's Bench dismissed Dutchak Holdings Limited's application for a mandatory interlocutory injunction against the Saskatchewan Health Authority.
   
• Justice Danyliuk found that Dutchak's separate court action amounted to an abuse of process because a stay could have been sought under Rule 3-60 within Dutchak's existing statutory appeal.
   
• The elevated "strong prima facie case" standard applicable to mandatory injunctions was not met by Dutchak on the interpretation of section 18(12) of The Ambulance Act.
   
• Dutchak's failure to file an undertaking as to damages independently undermined its application for injunctive relief.
   
• Claims of irreparable harm involving staffing losses, idle equipment, and reputational damage were found speculative and largely compensable through damages.
   
• SHA was awarded fixed costs of $10,000.00, though the court declined to grant solicitor-client costs against Dutchak.
   

Facts of the case

Dutchak Holdings Limited, operating as WPD Ambulance Lloydminster, had supplied ambulance services to the Lloydminster area in Saskatchewan since 2013 and, at one point, in Alberta as well. Discord between Dutchak and the Saskatchewan Health Authority (SHA) developed over several years regarding Dutchak's provision of ambulance services. In 2021, Dutchak lost its Alberta contract. SHA terminated its contract with Dutchak in October 2021, citing Dutchak's continued failure to comply with contractual terms regarding the provision of ambulance units, and terminated the contract a second time in June 2022, this time linked to the loss of the Alberta contract, which SHA treated as a breach of its own contract with Dutchak. Because of the "deemed continuation provision" in section 18(12) of The Ambulance Act, Dutchak continued to provide ambulance services despite these terminations. Dutchak disputed the propriety of both terminations, and under section 18 of the Act, the disputes proceeded to arbitration before Arbitrator Doug Surtees, who heard the matter over several dates in 2025 and issued a 47-page decision on March 10, 2026, ruling in favour of SHA on all four disputes before him. Dutchak has also brought a statutory appeal of that arbitration decision in a separate Saskatoon action. Rather than seeking a stay of the arbitrator's decision within that appeal, Dutchak commenced this separate action by statement of claim, seeking a declaration that SHA could not terminate the contract until the appeal was decided, and filed an originating application seeking an interlocutory mandatory injunction requiring SHA to continue abiding by the contract in the interim. Notably, Dutchak's claim did not seek costs. The evidence filed by Dutchak came from an affidavit of Michael Androsoff, a consultant to Dutchak, which the court found contained improper hearsay and opinion evidence at several paragraphs, and from an affidavit of Krista Remeshylo sworn on behalf of SHA.

Policy and legislative provisions at issue

The dispute centred on section 18 of The Ambulance Act, SS 1986, c A-18.1, which governs the referral of contract disputes between ambulance operators and health boards to mediation and arbitration. Subsection 18(12) proved central: it provides that, notwithstanding referral of a dispute to mediation or arbitration, the contract between the parties is deemed to continue as it existed when notice was served until the dispute is resolved or the appeal period under subsection 18(11) expires. The parties disagreed sharply on how this deemed continuation provision should be interpreted and applied, and the court noted that this interpretive question would ultimately be determined in Dutchak's pending statutory appeal rather than in this application. The court also considered Rule 3-60 of The King's Bench Rules, which provides for a stay of proceedings pending appeal, and observed that Dutchak could have sought this remedy directly within its appeal instead of commencing a separate action. Rule 13-30 of The King's Bench Rules, governing permissible affidavit content, was engaged in relation to the hearsay and opinion evidence in the Androsoff affidavit, with the court noting that Rule 13-30(4) could expose a party to costs for such deficiencies. Finally, Part 11 of The King's Bench Rules, particularly Rule 11-1, governed the court's assessment of costs.

Reasoning and analysis

Justice Danyliuk first addressed SHA's preliminary objection that Dutchak's action amounted to an abuse of process, since Dutchak had a plain and direct route to the same relief through a stay application under Rule 3-60 within its existing appeal. Relying on Nazeer v Fink, 2025 SKCA 112, and Behn v Moulton Contracting Ltd., 2013 SCC 26, the court agreed that Dutchak's separate action was a collateral attack on the arbitrator's decision and an unnecessary and indirect means of achieving what could have been sought directly, and concluded that the application must be dismissed on this basis alone. The court nonetheless proceeded to examine the merits in the alternative. Applying the test for interlocutory injunctions set out in Mosaic Potash Esterhazy Limited Partnership v Potash Corporation of Saskatchewan Inc., 2011 SKCA 120, as confirmed in Wildman v Kulyk, 2013 SKCA 55, the court accepted that because Dutchak sought a mandatory injunction, the first branch of the test was elevated from a "serious issue to be tried" to a "strong prima facie case," per R v Canadian Broadcasting Corp., 2018 SCC 5 — a standard Dutchak's own counsel ultimately acknowledged applied. The court found Dutchak had not demonstrated such a case, given Arbitrator Surtees' thorough factual and legal analysis against Dutchak on all four disputes and the comparative weakness of Dutchak's evidence on the interpretation of section 18(12). Separately, the court held that Dutchak's failure to file an undertaking as to damages was, on its own, a serious and potentially fatal deficiency, citing 101280222 Saskatchewan Ltd. v Silver Star Salvage (1998) Ltd., 2019 SKCA 59, and The Catalyst Group Inc. v Moyse, 2015 ONSC 4388. On irreparable harm, the court reviewed Dutchak's three asserted grounds — loss of paramedics, idle equipment and facilities, and reputational harm — and found each either unsupported by adequate evidence or compensable in damages. The balance of convenience was found to favour SHA, particularly given the arbitrator's findings that Dutchak had repeatedly failed to honour its contractual obligations, while Dutchak provided no comparable evidence of harm to itself if the injunction were refused. Weighing the overall equities, the court concluded that none of the factors favoured granting the injunction.

Ruling and overall outcome

Justice Danyliuk dismissed Dutchak's application for a mandatory interlocutory injunction in its entirety, finding that Dutchak had failed to establish an abuse-of-process-free basis for proceeding, a strong prima facie case, irreparable harm, or a favourable balance of convenience, and had also failed to provide an undertaking as to damages. SHA, as the successful party, sought solicitor-client costs, but the court declined to award them, finding that Dutchak's conduct did not meet the "scandalous, outrageous or reprehensible" threshold required under Siemens v Bawolin, 2002 SKCA 84. The court nonetheless found that ordinary tariff costs would be inadequate given the complexity of the application and the resources SHA expended in defending it, and fixed costs against Dutchak in the amount of $10,000.00, all-inclusive, payable to SHA in any event of the cause and forthwith.