Executive Summary: Key Legal and Evidentiary Issues

• Characterization of SRC’s health benefits as a non-insured group benefits regime, with SRC as the only debtor of benefits and Canada Vie acting merely as administrator.
• Absence of any direct contractual or extracontractual legal link between Ms. Maliza-Mapemba and Canada Vie to support a civil claim for unpaid health benefits or damages.
• Jurisdictional bar arising from the collective agreement: disputes over benefits and Charter-based rights tied to working conditions fall under the exclusive competence of a labour arbitrator, not the Superior Court (civil chamber).
• Improper reliance on the Québec Charter, the Canadian Human Rights Act and the Criminal Code in a civil action, given that those remedies must be pursued through specialized bodies or criminal processes.
• Insufficiency of factual allegations and supporting documents to ground a civil fault by Canada Vie, including the handling of requests for psychologist fees and the demand for a physician’s prescription.
• Resulting dismissal of the action as inadmissible and outside the Superior Court’s subject-matter jurisdiction, with costs awarded in favour of Canada Vie (amount not specified).

Factual background to the dispute

Rose Maliza-Mapemba was hired by Société Radio-Canada (SRC) on 29 May 2023 as a project manager for projects and capital assets. Her employment contract stated that, as a unionized employee, she was subject to the collective agreement between SRC and the Association des Professionnels et des Superviseurs (APS). Within that employment framework, SRC offered a mandatory group benefits program, including health coverage, which was administered by La Compagnie d’assurance du Canada sur la vie (Canada Vie). By email dated 26 June 2023, Canada Vie confirmed her enrolment in this SRC benefits program. The judge noted that this plan is properly characterized as a “régime d’avantages sociaux non assuré” within the meaning of article 27(2) of the Loi sur les assureurs. In such a structure, the employer personally undertakes to pay benefits when covered risks materialize, and may retain an insurer only to administer the plan, without transferring the underlying financial obligation.

Parallel employment conflict with SRC

Separately from the benefits issue, Ms. Maliza-Mapemba had a deteriorating employment relationship with SRC. She alleged discrimination, harassment, intimidation, racism, sexism and even physical and psychological violence at work, especially around July 2024. She claimed to have experienced serious physical and psychological symptoms, including chronic pain and anxiety, and suspected intoxication. In late July 2024 she lodged a complaint with her union, copying human resources and her managers. SRC then placed her on paid leave from 5 to 9 August 2024 to enable her to seek professional help and requested a medical confirmation regarding her fitness for work. On 16 August 2024, a psychologist’s note confirmed acute stress symptoms but authorized a return to work as of 26 August, with a recommendation for telework. SRC subsequently treated her absence from 26 August as unjustified, demanded clarification, and later convened her to discuss a return to work after receiving a fitness-for-work note. On 9 October 2024 she sent SRC a formal demand seeking a very large monetary amount for alleged crimes and human rights violations, and on 15 November 2024 she filed a separate civil proceeding against SRC seeking tens of millions of dollars and even criminal-style findings for harassment, torture, assault and criminal negligence.

Initiation of the claim against Canada Vie

In parallel to these disputes with her employer, Ms. Maliza-Mapemba instituted proceedings against Canada Vie on 30 August 2024. She relied on the SRC group benefits program to argue that Canada Vie should have reimbursed three psychologist-related claims under her health coverage. On that basis she advanced three broad categories of relief. First, she claimed an unspecified amount for alleged violations of articles 1, 2, 4, 6, 10 and 17 of the Québec Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms. Second, she sought $2.4 million grounded on alleged infractions of the Criminal Code and violations of the Canadian Human Rights Act, asserting fabrication of false documents, fraud, criminal negligence causing serious illness and bodily harm, racial discrimination and illegal practices. Third, she claimed $700 in unpaid health claims relating to psychological services.

Nature of the benefits regime and the absence of contractual link with Canada Vie

The court’s starting point was to examine the legal nature of the SRC benefits arrangement and the resulting legal ties among the parties. Under article 27(2) of the Loi sur les assureurs, a non-insured benefits regime is one that is accessory to a contract of employment, under which the employer undertakes to pay a benefit in the event of a risk similar to those covered under personal insurance. In this model the employer is solely responsible for paying benefits, while an insurer can be retained only to administer the plan, such as processing claims and communications. The documentation given to employees in this case explicitly stated that the SRC benefits plan was “offert par SRC.” SRC therefore stood as the only debtor of benefits to the employee, and Canada Vie acted purely as the plan’s administrator. In consequence, if health benefits are denied or left unpaid, the participant’s civil recourse lies against the employer, not the administrative insurer. The court held that no direct contractual obligation ran from Canada Vie to Ms. Maliza-Mapemba that could support a claim for unpaid psychologist fees under the plan.

Alleged wrongful handling of health claims and evidentiary shortcomings

The judge then examined the specific allegations against Canada Vie to see whether they could support a civil fault on an extracontractual basis. Ms. Maliza-Mapemba asserted that Canada Vie had refused to reimburse her psychologist fees and had instead required a physician’s prescription. However, the email she invoked did not actually record a refusal to pay, and in any event, payment obligations lay with SRC as employer, not with Canada Vie. The evidence simply showed Canada Vie asking her to provide a doctor’s order. The court found no fault in that request on the face of the pleadings and documents, and in any case the plaintiff had not explained why that requirement was unreasonable or harmful. She further alleged that Canada Vie “should be informed about mental illness, its dangers and all factors that could aggravate it,” but this was framed as a bare opinion, not as a concrete allegation of wrongful conduct. She also claimed that since Canada Vie’s supposed refusal to reimburse, she had suffered nightmares and chronic pain, but the pleadings did not articulate any causal chain connecting an identifiable fault by Canada Vie to those alleged damages. Finally, she criticized Canada Vie’s silence after a demand letter dated 24 August 2024, even though, within days, Canada Vie wrote back and repeated its request for a physician’s prescription. Taken together, these sparse and generic allegations, read with the attached documents, did not disclose material facts capable of grounding a civil fault or an actionable extracontractual claim against Canada Vie.

Procedural posture and test for inadmissibility

Canada Vie brought a preliminary motion seeking dismissal of the action on grounds of irrecevabilité, arguing that the claim was legally unfounded even if all factual allegations were assumed to be true. At this stage, the Superior Court was required to take the plaintiff’s pleaded facts and supporting documents as proven, without weighing credibility, and ask whether, as a matter of law, they could justify the conclusions sought. The court also had to be cautious not to short-circuit a case where factual issues required a full trial; in case of doubt, the matter should normally proceed. Here, however, the judge found no such doubt: even taken at their highest, the allegations and exhibits did not establish any legal foundation for a civil judgment against Canada Vie. This conclusion on the absence of a legal cause of action was complemented by a further, independent objection: lack of jurisdiction (compétence d’attribution).

Exclusive jurisdiction of labour arbitration over collective agreement issues

The judge held that many core elements of the dispute were inextricably linked to the collective agreement between SRC and the union APS. The benefits regime to which Ms. Maliza-Mapemba subscribed by virtue of her unionized employment forms part of that collective agreement. Under Canadian labour law principles, when the essence of a dispute concerns the interpretation, application, administration or breach of a collective agreement, an arbitrator appointed under that agreement enjoys exclusive jurisdiction. Rights and remedies flowing from the collective agreement cannot be detached and re-litigated before the Superior Court in a civil action. In this case, the plaintiff’s core grievance was SRC’s alleged failure to honour its obligation to indemnify her for health-related expenses under the group benefits regime. The court therefore held that this dispute fell squarely within the ambit of the collective agreement and should be addressed through grievance and arbitration procedures, not through a civil action in the Superior Court.

Human rights dimensions and specialized forums

Ms. Maliza-Mapemba also relied on alleged breaches of the Québec Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms, asserting that her fundamental rights had been infringed. The court noted that, in the labour relations context, Charter-protected rights are considered to be part of the collective agreement’s fabric. Where a claim of discrimination or violation of fundamental rights is tied to the working conditions governed by a collective agreement, it too falls under the exclusive jurisdiction of the labour arbitrator. The Superior Court therefore had no concurrent jurisdiction to decide those Charter-based complaints insofar as they arose from the employment relationship and the benefits plan. Moreover, the plaintiff’s Charter-based conclusions were drafted at a very high level of generality, merely listing fundamental rights without specifying the concrete Charter breaches she attributed to Canada Vie or the resulting damages. This lack of precision reinforced the court’s conclusion that no viable Charter-based civil claim had been advanced against the insurer. As for the Canadian Human Rights Act, the court recalled that complaints and remedies under that statute belong to the specialized jurisdiction of the Canadian Human Rights Commission and the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal, which follow their own statutory procedures. The remedy regime under section 53 of the Act cannot be transposed into a civil action before the Québec Superior Court. Claims purporting to invoke that remedy against Canada Vie in this proceeding were therefore not just premature, but simply unavailable in this forum.

Misplaced criminal law claims in a civil proceeding

A striking feature of Ms. Maliza-Mapemba’s pleadings, both against SRC and against Canada Vie, was the reliance on criminal law language and Criminal Code offences such as harassment, torture, assault and criminal negligence. The court was clear that the civil chamber of the Superior Court lacks criminal or penal jurisdiction and cannot issue orders based directly on the Criminal Code. A criminal prosecution must be initiated and conducted under the procedures prescribed in the Criminal Code, and prosecutions are brought by the Attorney General (or a designated prosecutor), not by private individuals in the civil courts. Although any person, including Ms. Maliza-Mapemba, may denounce alleged crimes, that denunciation is received and considered by a judge of the Court of Québec, and if charges are laid, they proceed through the criminal courts. Consequently, her attempt to obtain criminal-style findings or to ground a civil claim on Criminal Code provisions in this action was procedurally misconceived and had to be rejected outright.

Outcome, successful party and monetary consequences

In conclusion, the court held that, even accepting all of Ms. Maliza-Mapemba’s factual allegations as true, her claim against Canada Vie rested on no tenable legal foundation and lay outside the court’s subject-matter jurisdiction. There was no direct contractual tie making Canada Vie liable to pay benefits under the SRC plan, no adequately pleaded extracontractual fault by Canada Vie, and the labour, human rights and criminal components of her claim either belonged to specialized forums (arbitration or human rights bodies) or could not be pursued in a civil action. The Superior Court therefore granted Canada Vie’s motion, declared the action inadmissible and dismissed the plaintiff’s originating application, with costs. Canada Vie is thus the successful party, and it is awarded its legal costs, but the judgment does not specify any exact dollar amount for those costs or any damages, so the precise monetary value in its favour cannot be determined from the decision.