Executive Summary: Key Legal and Evidentiary Issues

• Whether layout work performed by VR3D's land surveyors' assistants on a construction site is "construction work" under section 1 f) of the R-20 Act was the central question.
   
• Reasonableness, as framed in Vavilov, was the standard of review agreed to by all parties and applied by the court.
   
• VR3D argued that the TAT failed to follow the 2009 Superior Court judgment holding that acts under section 34 of the Land Surveyors Act are not construction work.
   
• That 2009 judgment, the court found, addressed which acts are exclusive to land surveyors and did not characterize work specific to erecting a building.
   
• Allegations of a legislative conflict between the R-20 Act and the A-23 Act were rejected because the TAT read the 2009 judgment correctly, and its paragraphs 79 to 81, read together, reasonably described that judgment's scope.
   
• Purpose-based analysis of the nine disputed operations by the TAT was held to be supported by the evidence, intelligible, and not unreasonable.
   

Facts of the case

Vital Roy 3D inc. (VR3D) is a land surveying firm that uses land surveyors' assistants (AAGs) on certain mandates. These assistants have taken an oath under the Land Surveyors Act (the A-23 Act). The Commission de la construction du Québec (CCQ), which enforces the Act respecting labour relations, vocational training and workforce management in the construction industry (the R-20 Act) and the collective agreements established under it, took the view that the assistants were performing construction work on some of their mandates. On March 13, 2020, it sued VR3D in the Court of Québec for $47,208.64, plus interest and the additional indemnity. That figure represented the difference between what VR3D's employees earned and what they should have received under the applicable agreements.

On April 28, 2021, the Court of Québec stayed the claim until the Tribunal administratif du travail (TAT) decided a question. The TAT had to determine whether the assistants' work was strictly layout or staking work under section 34 of the A-23 Act, or whether they had performed construction work connected to or alongside it. VR3D described the disputed work as nine items: layout on footing, layout after excavation, mobilization and demobilization, mechanical layout of the building, layout of axes for the building structure, layout for formwork, layout of piles, layout of underground electrical infrastructure, and layout of curbs, parking and sidewalk. On June 29, 2023, the TAT declared that the work covered by the CCQ's claim was subject to the R-20 Act. VR3D applied to the Superior Court for judicial review on July 21, 2023, raising five grounds. The application was heard on March 26, 2026, and judgment was issued on September 17, 2026.

Policy and legislative provisions at issue

Section 34 of the A-23 Act declares the land surveyor a public officer. It defines the practice of the profession to include land surveys, boundary determinations, plan surveys, location certificates, operations relating to subdivision and staking of lots, cadastral operations, and the establishment and updating of the network of geodetic points.

The TAT assessed the work under the first paragraph of section 1 f) of the R-20 Act, using the method summarized in Solpro inc. et Commission de la construction du Québec, 2019 QCTAT 792. That method asks three questions. The first is whether the work is foundation, erection, maintenance, renovation, repair, alteration or demolition work, including preliminary ground preparation. The second is whether it relates to a building or a civil engineering work. The third is whether it was performed on the site or at the work location. These concepts are read broadly and liberally because the R-20 Act is public-order legislation, so the list also captures any work that contributes to the performance or completion of the work. Work covered by the first paragraph is then checked against the exceptions in section 19. If it is covered and not excluded, the analysis ends. Otherwise, the second paragraph of section 1 f) and Regulation No. 1 apply.

The parties all relied, in different ways, on Ordre des arpenteurs-géomètres du Québec c. Commission de la construction du Québec, 2009 QCCS 1314. That dispute arose from a 1998 CCQ directive. The directive subjected to the R-20 Act work, done with or without surveying instruments, that gives directions to work crews on site during construction. It excluded verification work by external consultants acting for the owner. It also excluded surveying done before construction, including work by land surveyors and their assistants under section 34. The 2009 judgment declared that all work constituting the exclusive practice of land surveying under section 34 may be performed on a construction site without the surveyor or the surveyor's assistants holding a certificate of competency or a contractor's licence.

Reasoning and analysis

All parties agreed that reasonableness was the applicable standard under Vavilov. VR3D added that a decision that interprets or applies statutory provisions without regard to a court precedent is unreasonable. The court therefore began with how the TAT read the 2009 judgment. If the TAT had read it correctly, the court reasoned, the alleged legislative conflict between the R-20 Act and the A-23 Act would simply not exist.

The court found that the TAT had read the 2009 judgment correctly. That judgment examined surveyors' work to determine whether it was exclusive to the profession, but it did not characterize work specific to erecting a building. The TAT made this distinction through extensive underlined quotations rather than a summary. According to the court, that approach is neither rare nor unusual. The court found no misapprehension of the weight owed to the 2009 judgment because its foundation was not the same.

The TAT focused on the nature and purpose of the work rather than on the status of the people doing it. It concluded that the disputed work contributed to three activities named in section 1 f): the foundation and erection of the building, and ground preparation. When grouping the work, the TAT omitted the mobilization and demobilization item, but it addressed that item in its analysis, noting that the practice is well established as common to construction work.

The court grouped VR3D's five grounds into two. It observed that VR3D was treating the 2009 judgment like res judicata without using the term, since identity of cause was missing, and that VR3D was engaging in a "line-by-line treasure hunt for error." On the legislative conflict, VR3D relied on two passages from the TAT's decision. Paragraph 80 records that all parties agreed work done in connection with property lines is surveying, not construction. Paragraph 81 says it was not for the TAT to resolve a real or apparent conflict between statutes. The court held that paragraphs 79 to 81, read together, are a logical and reasonable observation on the scope of the 2009 judgment. In the court's view, the TAT had not refused to treat that judgment as binding. The 2009 judgment was a declaratory ruling on acts reserved to land surveyors, while the TAT had to decide whether the assistants' calculations or acts in nine specific operations were construction. The TAT concluded they were, "provided that it is not necessary to refer to the property lines to position the work."

VR3D also argued that the TAT treated layouts differently even though they were always surveying operations, and that the applicable regulation allows layouts from three reference points. The court held that this argument again led back to the 2009 judgment. The TAT's decision could not align with VR3D's notion of acts exclusive to land surveyors because the question before the TAT rested on a different premise. The TAT's interpretation and analytical framework under section 1 f) lay at the core of its jurisdiction.

The court found that the Conseil Provincial du Québec des Métiers de la Construction (International) aptly summarized why the TAT's framework was relevant and consistent. That party had submitted that the TAT could reasonably exclude operations tied to property boundaries. It had also pointed out that, as the TAT explained, the CCQ had not sought to have those operations declared subject to the R-20 Act. VR3D appeared to argue that every calculation in the nine operations, apart from mobilization and demobilization, necessarily started from the surveyors' initial layouts against the property lines. The TAT did not adopt that approach because that step was already completed at the time of construction. The surveyors' earlier acts fell within their exclusive jurisdiction, but once those acts were finished, the assistants' work consisted of new calculations to facilitate the erection or completion of the project.

Ruling and overall outcome

The court acknowledged that other reasoning could have been considered. It nevertheless concluded that the TAT's reasoning was supported by the evidence, intelligible, and not unreasonable in light of the questions put to it. The court dismissed VR3D's application for judicial review with legal costs. As a result, the TAT's declaration that the assistants' disputed work is subject to the R-20 Act stands, which favours the TAT and the CCQ. The judgment does not set an amount for costs and awards no other sum. The CCQ's $47,208.64 claim belongs to the stayed Court of Québec proceeding and was not decided in this judgment.