Executive Summary: Key Legal and Evidentiary Issues

• Professional order seeks provisional injunction to stop a former audioprosthetist from unlawfully holding herself out as still authorized and from usurping the reserved professional title.
• Failure by the former member to designate a cessionary and to transfer active and inactive patient files to the Order, despite formal notices and extended deadlines, raises serious public protection concerns.
• Evidence from sworn declarations, photographs of the clinic signage, and the Google Business profile supports ongoing misrepresentation of professional status after cessation of practice.
• The court finds clear breaches of public-order provisions in the Code des professions, the Loi sur les audioprothésistes, and the Règlement on files and cessation of practice, justifying urgent injunctive relief.
• Prejudice to at least one named former patient, including health, quality-of-life and economic impacts, underscores the seriousness of withholding patient records from the new treating audioprosthetist.
• Balancing of convenience, public interest in professional regulation, and repeated non-compliance leads the court to grant broad, enforceable provisional orders in favor of the Ordre des audioprothésistes du Québec.

Factual background and cessation of practice

The case arises from the professional cessation of Suzanne Rainville, who had been a member of the Ordre des audioprothésistes du Québec (OAQ) since 1978. She signed a formal resignation letter dated 14 February 2025, which the OAQ received on 24 February 2025. As of that date, her practice as an audioprosthetist ceased definitively and she was no longer permitted to perform reserved acts, claim membership in the OAQ, or benefit from the Order’s professional liability insurance coverage. The OAQ is a professional order under the Code des professions and the Loi sur les audioprothésistes, mandated primarily to protect the public by controlling the exercise of the profession and supervising its members’ conduct. When a member stops practising, that public-protection mandate continues to govern the handling and transfer of patient files. The regulatory framework requires an audioprosthetist who ceases practice to designate a cessionary to take over the follow-up of patients and to provide the OAQ with a copy of the transfer agreement within a prescribed delay. Failing this, patient files must be turned over to the secretary of the OAQ under the Code des professions and the Règlement on files, consultation offices and cessation of practice for audioprosthetists.

Alleged regulatory breaches and dealings between the parties

Following her resignation, the OAQ took the position that Ms. Rainville was not complying with her cessation-of-practice obligations. First, she allegedly failed to designate any cessionary for her practice and did not transfer her active patient files to the Order within the 15-day period prior to cessation of practice, as required by article 91 paragraph 4 of the Code and articles 21 and 23 of the Règlement. Despite written reminders and formal notices served by bailiff in late February and March 2025, the OAQ states that she did not regularize the situation. The OAQ granted an additional deadline until 3 April 2025 for Ms. Rainville to identify potential cessionaries and indicated that, if none were confirmed, she would have to remit her patient files to the Order on 4 April 2025. Even with this extension, the only files she allegedly provided were older inactive files more than ten years old; current and active patient files remained outstanding. A final demand letter sent on 16 May 2025 warned that, in the absence of full remittance of all client files, the Order would apply to the Superior Court for injunctive relief. According to the court record, this last notice also went unanswered. In parallel, the OAQ gathered evidence that Ms. Rainville’s professional obligations to the public were being compromised, including the ongoing detention of files essential to patient follow-up.

Evidence of ongoing use of title and public misrepresentation

The second stream of allegations concerned Ms. Rainville’s representation to the public that she remained an audioprosthetist. The president of the OAQ took a photograph on 12 June 2025 of signage at Ms. Rainville’s former professional address which, in the Order’s view, continued to present her as an active audioprosthetist. In addition, a printout of her Google Business profile dated 22 June 2025 indicated she was still described as an audioprosthetist. These elements were filed by sworn declarations and exhibits to demonstrate that a member of the public could reasonably be led to believe she was still licensed and authorized to render reserved services, contrary to the Code des professions and the Loi sur les audioprothésistes. The OAQ also tendered several sworn statements from its officers and representatives: the president of the board, the current and interim directors general and secretaries, a syndic responsible for illegal practice and title usurpation investigations, and a practising audioprosthetist. Their evidence supported the narrative of repeated non-compliance and the persistence of public-facing references to a professional status Ms. Rainville no longer legally held.

Impact on patients and public protection concerns

A key evidentiary element came from an anonymized former patient, identified only as A.B., who filed a sworn declaration under seal. This patient explained that the ongoing retention of his or her file by Ms. Rainville was harming health and quality of life and also created economic prejudice because the new audioprosthetist responsible for follow-up could not access the complete record. This concrete instance of harm illustrated the broader public interest concerns behind the Code and Règlement provisions: ensuring continuity of care and safeguarding access to essential information after a professional ceases practice. The court emphasized that these statutory and regulatory norms are of public order because they exist to protect the public rather than to govern purely private interests. Violations of public-order provisions, especially where repeated over time, were treated as creating a presumption of serious or irreparable harm, and the court highlighted that in such contexts the interests of individual parties must yield to the public’s interest in effective professional oversight.

Legal framework for injunctive relief

The proceeding before the court was a Demande pour l’émission d’ordonnances d’injonction provisoire, interlocutoire et permanente filed by the OAQ on 23 June 2025 and served on Ms. Rainville on 25 June 2025. The hearing concerned only the provisional stage, and Ms. Rainville did not appear. The court applied the criteria for a provisional injunction under articles 509 to 511 of the Code of Civil Procedure, in light of jurisprudence on professional orders’ recourse to injunctive relief to enforce public-order statutory duties. The judge found that the OAQ had established a clear, even certain, right flowing from the Code des professions, the Loi sur les audioprothésistes, and the applicable Règlement, including obligations to cease using the professional title once no longer a member, not to misrepresent authorization to practice, and to ensure proper custody or transfer of patient files upon cessation of exercise. The evidence, including the resignation letter, the OAQ’s attestation of non-membership, the published notice of cessation, the unanswered formal notices, the limited production of only very old inactive files, the signage photograph, the Google profile, and the patient’s declaration, were sufficient for the court to conclude that these public-order provisions were being violated. On serious or irreparable harm, the judge held that in public-order contexts involving public protection, prejudice is presumed and that the harm to patients and to the integrity of the professional regulatory system outweighed any inconvenience an injunction might cause to Ms. Rainville. Previous decisions involving other professional orders and illegal practice or title usurpation reinforced this analysis.

Scope of the provisional orders and overall outcome

As a result of these findings, the Superior Court granted the OAQ’s application for a provisional injunction, effective until 7 July 2025 at 23:59. The court ordered Ms. Rainville to stop holding herself out as authorized to practise as an audioprosthetist, to cease usurping the title, and to remove without delay all advertising, signage, and online references (including on her Google Business profile) suggesting she was an audioprosthetist or could render reserved services. She was also ordered to clearly post the provisional and interlocutory injunction decision on the door of her former professional premises. On the patient-file and records front, the court declared that, under the Règlement and Code des professions, the OAQ is entitled to receive all files, effects and equipment she held when she ceased practice on 24 February 2025 and still retains. It then ordered her, within five days of service of the judgment, to remit all active and inactive client files, related effects, equipment and accounting records linked to her professional practice, on whatever medium they exist. Failing compliance with that order, she must inform the OAQ within the same five-day timeframe where all such files and items are located. The judgment authorizes OAQ representatives, assisted by a bailiff and an IT technician if needed, to access her former premises, open all storage areas, copy data from computer hard drives or, if copying cannot be done quickly, temporarily remove the hardware for up to 72 hours to reproduce the information. The bailiff may use necessary force with police assistance to enter and enforce the judgment, and third parties holding any of Ms. Rainville’s client files or professional records must grant access or surrender them to the Order. The judgment may be served by any means, even outside legal hours and on non-business days, is enforceable notwithstanding appeal, and the Order is dispensed from posting security. The successful party in this decision is therefore the Ordre des audioprothésistes du Québec, which obtained broad provisional injunctive and declaratory relief; however, the court did not fix any damages or specific monetary amount, and costs were left to follow the ultimate outcome, so no exact total for any monetary award or costs can be determined from this decision.