Search by
Factual background
Matériaux de construction Swimko inc. (Swimko) is a general contractor operating various residential and mixed-use construction projects in Québec. It holds a licence issued by the Régie du bâtiment du Québec (RBQ). The dispute arises from enforcement steps taken by the Commission de la construction du Québec (CCQ) and the RBQ regarding compliance with licensing and workforce-certification rules on one of Swimko’s key construction sites, the Somerled project in Montréal. On 7 August 2025, the CCQ issued an Ordonnance de suspension de travaux, ordering the suspension of all construction work on the Somerled site. The CCQ alleged that Swimko had failed to demonstrate that the work it performed or had performed was being carried out by businesses holding an RBQ licence and using employees with valid competency certificates or appropriate exemptions. The suspension order notified Swimko of its right to seek review before the Tribunal administratif du travail (TAT) within 10 days. That same day, CCQ inspectors personally handed Swimko a separate Autorisation de reprise partielle des travaux. This partial authorization allowed only certain named subcontractors, listed in an Annex A, to resume work. The authorization also imposed a continuing condition: no new subcontractor could be added without prior CCQ approval, which required Swimko to submit the subcontract and the list of the subcontractor’s employees and await CCQ’s confirmation. Swimko did not file a review application before the TAT within the 10-day period. On 18 August 2025, upon expiry of the review period, the CCQ filed the 7 August suspension order with the Superior Court under article 7.8 of the Loi sur les relations du travail, la formation professionnelle et la gestion de la main-d’œuvre dans l’industrie de la construction. Once deposited, the work-suspension decision became enforceable as a final, non-appealable judgment of the Superior Court.
Statutory context and automatic licence suspension
The CCQ’s authority to suspend work and then authorize resumption stems from articles 7.3, 7.4 and 7.5 of the Loi sur les relations du travail in the construction industry. These provisions allow the CCQ to order a total or partial suspension of work if the person performing or having work performed does not demonstrate, within the prescribed time, that it and its workforce hold the required licences and certificates or exemptions, and to authorize the resumption of work once proper compliance is demonstrated. Article 7.7 gives a 10-day window to seek review before the TAT, and article 7.8 allows the CCQ to deposit a final or unreviewed decision at the Superior Court so it becomes enforceable like a final judgment. The more severe consequence for Swimko, however, came from article 70.2 of the Loi sur le bâtiment. That provision imposes an automatic 12-month suspension of a contractor’s licence when, within two years of a decision suspending work under either the building statute or the construction labour-relations statute (article 7.4), the licence holder is again the subject of a work-suspension decision. The suspension of the licence takes effect from the expiry of the review period before the TAT (or the final TAT decision, if review is sought). Swimko had previously been subject to a suspension of work on 28 August 2024 by the RBQ, which it did not contest. After the 7 August 2025 CCQ order was left unchallenged, the RBQ, on 27 August 2025, notified Swimko that its contractor’s licence was automatically suspended for 12 months, from 18 August 2025 to 18 August 2026, by operation of article 70.2. In the RBQ’s view, it had no true discretion: it merely applied the statutory consequence once the factual conditions—two unreviewed suspensions within two years—were satisfied.
Procedural history and prior attempts at provisional relief
Upon receiving the RBQ’s notice of licence suspension, Swimko reacted on multiple fronts. On 28 August 2025, it filed a Requête en annulation du dépôt d’une décision de la CCQ and associated safeguard relief, and it also asked the TAT for a provisional stay of the RBQ’s licence-suspension notice. On 29 August 2025, Swimko sought a safeguard order from the Superior Court. The presiding judge, however, held that urgency was not met because the TAT was scheduled to hear Swimko’s stay application concerning the RBQ’s notice on 2 September 2025; the TAT should first determine its own jurisdiction over the dispute. On 2 September 2025, the parties appeared before the TAT. In its 4 September 2025 ruling, the TAT dismissed Swimko’s recourse as inadmissible and refused the requested stay. It held that the RBQ had not made a reviewable “decision” under article 164.1 of the Loi sur le bâtiment when it sent the suspension notice; the RBQ was only giving effect to article 70.2 by acknowledging the two existing work-suspension decisions and applying the statutory consequence. The TAT also observed that, even if the RBQ’s act were treated as an administrative measure, the conditions of article 70.2 were clearly met because Swimko had twice been the subject of work-suspension decisions in less than two years and had not contested either within the prescribed delays. The TAT further indicated that it would not assume jurisdiction over any late challenge to the 7 August 2025 CCQ suspension order, particularly after the CCQ had deposited that order at the Superior Court, as the TAT’s own case law treated such a deposit as ousting its jurisdiction. After the TAT’s refusal, Swimko returned to the Superior Court on 5 September 2025 seeking a safeguard order to immediately suspend the RBQ licence suspension. On 8 September 2025, Justice Armstrong granted a 30-day safeguard order, suspending the effects of the RBQ’s licence suspension notice. She found the criteria met on the very summary record then before the court, but emphasized the urgency of the presentation, the relatively undeveloped arguments, and the need to give both sides time to properly develop the file before a more thorough interlocutory debate on any longer suspension. The RBQ sought leave to appeal that safeguard order, but the Court of Appeal, sitting as a single judge, refused leave on 24 September 2025, mainly because the short duration of the order meant there was no pressing need to avoid serious prejudice before it expired. The safeguard order remained in force for 30 days. Because the merits hearing could not be completed on 7 October 2025, the safeguard order was administratively extended to 17 October 2025, the date of Justice Boctor’s decision.
Evolution of Swimko’s legal theory
Initially, on the merits, Swimko’s only substantive conclusion was to have the Superior Court “declare without legal effect the filing in this case of the suspension of work order of 7 August 2025.” At that stage, according to Justice Armstrong’s earlier reasons, Swimko did not advance substantive grounds to contest the validity of the 7 August 2025 suspension itself; its position was that the later partial authorization to resume work had made it unnecessary to contest the original suspension order. By 2 October 2025, however, Swimko had significantly broadened and sharpened its theory, filing an amended motion that also asked the Superior Court to declare the 7 August 2025 CCQ suspension order itself “without legal effect.” Swimko now alleged that the suspension order was substantively unjustified, that the CCQ had nevertheless issued it despite Swimko’s cooperation, and that the CCQ’s conduct had misled Swimko into not contesting the order within the 10-day period. Swimko further argued that, but for the CCQ’s filing of the suspension decision at the Superior Court, it could have sought relief from default and a late review before the TAT. Throughout, Swimko resisted any characterization of its recourse as a judicial review under articles 529 and following of the Code of Civil Procedure. Instead, it attempted to frame its request as a sui generis proceeding under articles 34 and 49 C.p.c., asking the Superior Court to declare the CCQ suspension order and/or its deposit “without legal effect” without formally quashing the administrative decision. The respondents, CCQ and RBQ, responded with detailed sworn statements from CCQ inspector André Sigouin, challenging Swimko’s factual account and reinforcing the view that Swimko had been informed of both its review rights and the ongoing obligation to have any new subcontractors pre-approved.
Arguments on the apparent right
At the safeguard stage, the court’s task was not to decide the merits, but to examine whether Swimko had a sufficiently serious prima facie case. Swimko relied heavily on a 2003 Superior Court case, Investissement Danda Inc. c. CCQ, in which the court held that once the CCQ had totally authorized the resumption of work, an earlier, total suspension order was effectively null for the future and its later deposit at the Superior Court was “without legal effect.” Swimko argued that a similar declaration should issue here, rendering the 7 August 2025 order (or at least its deposit) legally ineffectual and thereby undermining one of the two statutory predicates for the automatic licence suspension under article 70.2. Justice Boctor held that this analogy was only partially persuasive. In Danda, the CCQ had first totally suspended and then totally re-authorized the works; in Swimko’s case, the CCQ had only granted a partial authorization, limited to the subcontractors listed in Annex A, while imposing an ongoing requirement that any new subcontractor be pre-approved. That continuing condition was a significant legal difference. The judge accepted that Swimko had a serious argument that there had never been a “total” suspension of work—because some authorized subcontractors could work throughout—but that did not, in itself, negate the existence of a “decision to suspend work” for purposes of article 70.2. The statute does not limit article 70.2 to total suspensions; it speaks broadly of “a decision to suspend work,” and the construction-labour statute itself expressly allows either total or partial suspensions. Crucially, Justice Boctor noted that article 70.2 is triggered not by the filing of the CCQ decision with the Superior Court, but by the underlying existence of two unreviewed suspension decisions within two years. Even if the deposit of the 7 August order were declared without effect, that would not automatically restore Swimko’s licence, because the article 70.2 conditions would still be met on the face of the two suspension decisions themselves. Swimko also advanced substantive attacks on the 7 August 2025 suspension decision, arguing that it cooperated with the CCQ, was misled into not contesting the order, and that new alleged infractions communicated by email on 6 August 2025 were handled without giving it sufficient time to respond. Justice Boctor accepted that Swimko appeared to have cooperated when asked, but the prima facie record also showed repeated non-compliance with certification rules absent close CCQ oversight and suggested that infractions continued to be observed on the Somerled site even in September 2025. On the “misleading conduct” claim, the evidence was sharply conflicting: Swimko’s principal described the inspectors as having suggested the site was effectively open with no additional measures required because of the partial resumption; inspector Sigouin’s sworn evidence was that he had carefully explained the consequences of both the suspension order and the partial resumption, drawing attention to the continuing limitation to named subcontractors only. A key Swimko witness who was present did not contradict Sigouin’s version on this point in his own affidavit, which weakened Swimko’s narrative at the prima facie level. In light of these contradictions, Justice Boctor found that Swimko’s appearance of right was, overall, weak, even if its arguments were not frivolous.
Urgency, serious prejudice and balance of inconveniences
On urgency, the court accepted that this criterion was met. Without a safeguard order, Swimko would have to halt work immediately on six ongoing projects, covering hundreds of residential units and several commercial units. The court also accepted that Swimko faced serious prejudice: project delays, potential financing complications, and added costs from bringing in replacement general contractors could significantly affect project profitability. However, the court noted that Swimko had been aware since late August 2025 that its requested stay might be refused, yet offered no concrete evidence of having explored contingency solutions, such as lining up alternative contractors, in the intervening weeks. The balance of inconveniences analysis weighed more heavily against granting further provisional relief. The Loi sur le bâtiment, including its strict certification requirements and automatic suspension mechanism, is a public-interest statute aimed at ensuring the quality and safety of construction work and protecting the public. Article 70.2 reflects the legislature’s choice to attach serious consequences when a contractor twice faces work-suspension decisions within a short period and does not promptly challenge them. By the time of Justice Boctor’s decision, the licence suspension had already been in force since 18 August 2025, and roughly two months had elapsed. Granting Swimko a further six-month suspension of the statutory suspension would effectively allow it to escape nearly two-thirds of the 12-month sanction created by Parliament, undermining the legislative goal of meaningful deterrence and public protection. CCQ and RBQ also pointed to evidence that Swimko continued to violate legal requirements even after the initial safeguard order, and Justice Boctor noted that Swimko admitted continuing work on another site (Fontaine) on 4 September 2025 despite the licence suspension, ostensibly to minimize damages while suspension issues were “still being debated” in court. This conduct underscored both the ongoing risk of non-compliance and the principle that a party seeking exceptional injunctive relief should not have “anything to reproach itself for” in relation to the orders it asks the court to temper. Swimko emphasized the prejudice to third-party purchasers awaiting delivery of units on various projects, and the court accepted that delays could impose significant inconvenience on buyers. Yet the evidence on timelines undercut the notion that a short, tightly focused safeguard could achieve imminent completions: projects that Swimko had earlier said were four to six weeks from delivery were, by mid-October, still estimated to be two to three months from completion. As for the Boisbriand (Moishe) project, Swimko invoked an interim arbitral award in a separate dispute involving cancellation of its new-home warranty plan membership, where the arbitrator had allowed that project to proceed in light of the particular needs of the Kiryas Toth community and the difficulty of replacing Swimko as general contractor. Justice Boctor held that she could not simply import the arbitrator’s reasoning; she lacked the full evidentiary record the arbitrator had seen, and Swimko had not led sufficient targeted evidence to justify a project-specific safeguard order on similar grounds.
Outcome and implications
After assessing all four criteria for a safeguard order—urgency, apparent right, serious prejudice and the balance of inconveniences—in a global manner, the Superior Court concluded that Swimko did not meet the threshold for further provisional relief. The company’s appearance of right was weak, particularly as to whether the 7 August 2025 order could be treated as legally null for article 70.2 purposes, and the public-interest weight of enforcing strict licensing and workforce-certification rules outweighed the private and third-party harms identified on the record. The court also placed some emphasis on Swimko’s own non-compliant conduct while seeking equitable relief. Justice Boctor therefore refused to extend or renew the earlier safeguard measure and ordered that Swimko’s Demande d’ordonnance de sauvegarde be dismissed, with costs reserved (“frais à suivre”). The successful parties in this decision are the respondents, the Commission de la construction du Québec and the Régie du bâtiment du Québec. No damages, monetary compensation or specific costs amount were awarded or quantified in the judgment; the court simply dismissed the safeguard application and left the question of costs to be determined at a later stage or in a related proceeding, so the exact monetary impact in terms of legal costs cannot be determined from this decision alone.
Download documents
Applicant
Respondent
Court
Quebec Superior CourtCase Number
500-05-086486-253Practice Area
Construction lawAmount
Not specified/UnspecifiedWinner
RespondentTrial Start Date