Executive Summary: Key Legal and Evidentiary Issues

• Homologation of a 2015 administrative order by the CPTAQ directing cessation of non-agricultural use and remediation of contaminated agricultural land.
• Determination that the CPTAQ’s role and the Court’s review are confined to legality of the order, not to reallocating responsibility between the “innocent” owner and the “guilty” operator.
• Effect of statutory amendments to article 85 of the Loi sur la protection du territoire et des activités agricoles (delay extended to three years and shift from an “injunction” model to “homologation”) on long-pending proceedings.
• Significance of prior Superior Court injunction (2022 QCCS 340) obliging Heppel to remove contaminated soil, contrasted with the CPTAQ’s current choice to seek enforcement only against the corporate owner, 9034.
• Impact of corporate status and director fears: whether the sole director-shareholder (Mme Deneault) is personally exposed under an order originally framed against “administrators” as well as the company.
• Allocation of future remediation costs and legal costs, including authorization for the CPTAQ to execute works at 9034’s expense under articles 84 and 86 of the agricultural protection statute, without a fixed monetary figure set in the judgment.

Background and facts

The dispute arises in the context of Québec’s regime for protecting agricultural land. The Commission de protection du territoire agricole du Québec (CPTAQ) oversees compliance with the Loi sur la protection du territoire et des activités agricoles (the “Law”), which restricts non-agricultural uses of designated land. 9034-7162 Québec inc. (“9034”) is a corporation constituted in 1996. In March 2008, it purchased a lot (now designated as lot 2 711 483 of the cadastre of Laprairie). The notarial deed incorrectly stated that the lot was not subject to the Law, even though the underlying parcel had been within the agricultural zone since 1978. After acquiring the property, the then-operator of 9034, Maurice Lussier, encountered an individual, Hermann Heppel, who was running an individual business under the name Terredépôt. At some unprecised date, Heppel allegedly asked permission to deposit fill on the lot and showed Lussier a document falsely indicating the fill was not contaminated. On that basis, Lussier allowed Heppel to bring fill onto the land; it later emerged that the soil was contaminated. The presence of this fill on designated agricultural land, regardless of contamination, triggered scrutiny by the CPTAQ as a non-agricultural use.

Regulatory intervention and the 2015 CPTAQ order

The CPTAQ had previously intervened in 2010 regarding other non-agricultural uses on the same property, including a gravelled area used for recreational activities and trailer storage. After a prior notice and a public meeting, the Commission had allowed a stone-covered access road to remain but noted that earlier non-agricultural uses had ceased. Later, in October 2014, the CPTAQ issued a fresh pre-notice under article 14.1 of the Law to both 9034 and Heppel, complaining of storage of soil containing contaminants to create a fill. The pre-notice ordered an immediate stop and gave 30 days to restore the land to its previous agricultural state. An agronomist for a consulting firm wrote indicating that work had stopped and promising sampling and analysis, but those undertakings did not translate into completed remedial action. In April 2015, the CPTAQ therefore issued a formal order under article 14. The order: confirmed the land’s protected agricultural status; described the non-agricultural use (storage of contaminated fill and related access works); directed 9034, Terredépôt/Heppel, their administrators, employees and successors to cease any non-agricultural use; and required them, by 15 June 2015, to remove contaminated or unsuitable materials and the granular materials forming the access road and to restore the lot to agricultural condition. The order also warned that, in case of non-compliance, the CPTAQ would apply to the Superior Court under the Law’s enforcement provisions and requested registration of the order at the land registry. Neither 9034 nor Heppel contested this 2015 administrative order before the Tribunal administratif du Québec, although the Law provided that avenue. The order thus became final on the administrative plane.

Civil proceedings between 9034 and Heppel

Instead of challenging the CPTAQ’s decision, 9034 turned to civil proceedings against Heppel. In February 2016, 9034 brought a Superior Court action (dossier 755-17-002352-162) seeking a permanent injunction. The CPTAQ was impleaded as a mis en cause but was not the primary target. In March 2017, Heppel made an assignment in bankruptcy. The Court nevertheless allowed the injunction action to proceed against him because it did not primarily seek recovery of a provable monetary claim, but prospective relief to force soil removal. In February 2022, the Superior Court granted the injunction. It ordered Heppel, within 180 days, to remove and transport the contaminated soil affecting 9034’s land to an authorized site, with costs in 9034’s favor. Heppel did not appear at the injunction hearing, was duly notified of the judgment, and did not comply. 9034, by then financially strained, did not pursue contempt or other enforcement remedies against him. The result was a judicial order obliging Heppel to remediate but no effective clean-up on the ground.

Suspension and later revival of the CPTAQ enforcement case

Parallel to the injunction proceedings, the CPTAQ initiated its own enforcement action in April 2017, seeking what was then described under article 85 of the Law as a Superior Court order enjoining non-compliance with its 2015 order. In April 2017, the trustee in Heppel’s bankruptcy filed a notice staying proceedings as against him in that case. Unlike the civil injunction case, no attempt was made to lift the stay or continue the CPTAQ case against Heppel. In July 2017, at the joint request of the CPTAQ and 9034, the CPTAQ’s enforcement case was suspended pending the outcome of 9034’s injunction action. The suspension order expressly left it to the CPTAQ to determine when to reactivate its proceedings in light of developments in the injunction case. During this period, 9034’s principal, Maurice Lussier, died, and his widow, Denise Deneault, inherited his property, including all shares of 9034. The corporate register was subsequently updated to reflect her as an administrator from December 2017. Other Lussier family members had at different times also been administrators, but the evidence about their roles was sparse. In February 2022, once 9034 had obtained its judgment against Heppel, three more years passed without effective remediation. In May 2025, the CPTAQ amended its initiating pleading in the stayed enforcement case to seek, in line with new 2025 legislative amendments, homologation of its 2015 order rather than an injunction mirroring its terms. The stay was formally lifted by the special clerk in September 2025, bringing the CPTAQ’s longstanding enforcement action back before the Superior Court in 2026, more than a decade after the original administrative order.

Statutory framework and legislative amendments

The Court’s analysis centers on articles 84 to 86 of the Law as amended in 2025, and on article 528 of the Code of Civil Procedure dealing with homologation. Article 84 provides that if a person does not comply with a judgment, the Commission may perform and register the remedial works itself, with the costs and interest secured by a legal hypothec on the lot. Article 85, as amended, now allows the CPTAQ, the Attorney General, or the relevant municipality to seek homologation of a CPTAQ order within three years of its notification, and also allows an interested party to seek an order to cease a breach of the Law even where no article 14 order exists. Before 2025, the text referred instead to obtaining from a judge “an order enjoining” the person to comply and set a two-year delay. The Court treats the shift from an “enjoining order” to “homologation” as essentially terminological, aimed at aligning with the Code’s language, rather than changing the substance of the remedy. The 2025 amendments also extended the delay from two to three years for seeking Superior Court enforcement of a CPTAQ order. Article 86 confirms that a judgment may order works at the expense of an identified person and that article 84 then applies, reinforcing that cost-recovery is built into the enforcement structure. Article 528 C.p.c. defines homologation as judicial approval of an act of the nature of a decision or agreement, conferring enforceability similar to a court judgment. The article also circumscribes the court’s role: on homologation, it may review legality but not revisit the opportunity, policy merits, or factual substance of the act unless a statute clearly grants such jurisdiction. Jurisprudence cited by the Court confirms the narrow scope of review on CPTAQ order homologations, emphasizing that the Superior Court does not rehear the administrative case, but only ensures that the order is legal on its face and within jurisdiction.

Arguments of 9034 and concerns of the director

9034’s defence is framed around fairness and fault allocation rather than any alleged illegality in the CPTAQ order itself. The corporation portrays itself as a victim of Heppel’s misconduct, deceived into allowing contaminated soil onto its land by his misrepresentation that the fill was clean. It points to its 2016–2022 effort to obtain a judgment compelling Heppel to remove the contaminated soil, and it notes Heppel’s bankruptcy and failure to comply with the 2022 injunction. 9034 also asserts that the contamination and the CPTAQ’s requirements have rendered the lot unusable, unsaleable, and essentially worthless, pushing the company to the brink of insolvency. It claims to have made serious efforts with the environment ministry to find remediation solutions but to have lacked the necessary funds to carry out full removal and decontamination. In its pleadings, 9034 asks the Superior Court to “condemn exclusively” Heppel, as the operator identified in the 2015 CPTAQ order, and to relieve 9034, as owner, from that order’s scope. In practical terms, it seeks to shift all responsibility for compliance to Heppel. Beneath this corporate stance lies a personal concern: Mme Deneault fears that if the CPTAQ is allowed to execute the clean-up and then seek reimbursement “from the administrators,” she might be personally targeted for the often very large costs of soil remediation. This anxiety is fed by the 2015 administrative order’s language, which was directed not only at 9034 and Terredépôt/Heppel, but also at their “administrateurs, préposés, employés, ayants droit ou ayants cause.”

Court’s reasoning on the limits of homologation

The Superior Court rejects 9034’s attempt to recast the 2015 order so that it targets only Heppel. It underscores that in an homologation proceeding, its role is strictly limited. The Court cannot rewrite the administrative order to align fault with the party 9034 perceives as the wrongdoer. Since the 2015 CPTAQ order was not contested before the administrative tribunal and no illegality is alleged before the Superior Court, the order must be taken as valid and binding on all parties it originally named, including 9034. Furthermore, the CPTAQ in this proceeding has chosen not to pursue any conclusions against Heppel, in light of his bankruptcy, the 2017 stay, and its current litigation strategy. The Court states that, given the narrow scope of homologation and the CPTAQ’s pleaded conclusions, it cannot modify the scope of the original order to exclude 9034 or to impose obligations solely on Heppel. As for Mme Deneault’s personal exposure, the Court notes that the CPTAQ, in correspondence filed at the Court’s request, clearly indicated that only corporate defendant 9034 is targeted by the modified application in this case, and that the administrator in her personal capacity is not. The Court accepts this position and indicates that the formal conclusions of the CPTAQ’s pleading will be mirrored in its own judgment. It leaves open that further debates could arise at the enforcement stage, for example, concerning who ultimately bears costs and how the CPTAQ executes on its rights, but stresses that such questions are not before it at the homologation stage.

Outcome and consequences for the parties

In its operative part, the Superior Court grants the CPTAQ’s application. It formally homologates the 30 April 2015 CPTAQ order, orders 9034 to comply with it, and immediately authorizes the CPTAQ to undertake the necessary restoration works at 9034’s expense under article 86 of the Law, with the ancillary cost-recovery regime of article 84 available to secure those expenditures. The judgment awards the CPTAQ costs of the court proceedings (“frais de justice”), again without quantifying an amount in the text. The earlier 2022 judgment in 9034-7162 Québec inc. c. Heppel remains relevant in the factual background: it established Heppel’s obligation to remove contaminated soil and awarded costs there to 9034. However, because Heppel has not complied and is in bankruptcy, that civil judgment has not led to actual remediation. The 2026 judgment now equips the CPTAQ with a directly enforceable court order confirming its 2015 directive and authorizing it to act, if necessary, in substitution for the non-compliant parties. In terms of litigation success, the Commission de protection du territoire agricole du Québec is the successful party in this 2026 homologation proceeding, having obtained all the principal relief it sought. No fixed or liquidated monetary award of damages is made in the judgment. The Court authorizes the CPTAQ to carry out remedial works at 9034’s expense and grants it its legal costs, but it does not set any specific dollar figure for remediation expenses or costs; those sums will depend on the actual costs incurred and on subsequent execution processes, and thus cannot be determined from the decision itself.