Compagnie Minière IOC c Uashaunnuat

Underlying this decision is a class action lawsuit brought by two Innu communities against the appellant and the Compagnie de chemin de fer du littoral nord du Québec et du Labrador (the Québec North Shore & Labrador Railway Company). In this class action the Innu plaintiffs are seeking a declaration of their Aboriginal title as well as several Aboriginal and treaty rights within an area affected by the defendant companies respective operations of a large mining complex and a railway. The plaintiffs are also seeking a permanent injunction against the impugned activities within the area they claim rights and title to as well as $900 million in damages. 

The defendants sought to have the class action dismissed on various bases including that the plaintiffs must first have their rights recognized as against the Crown before suing them and that the Crown must be a party to the litigation and was not. The Superior Court noted that the Attorney General of Quebec considers itself a full party to the litigation after having been brought in through a notice of constitutional question under Quebec's Code of Civil Procedure, effectively neutralizing the second argument. With respect to whether the plaintiffs' claims against the private party defendants could be sustained in the absence of recognition of their rights and title by the Crown, the Superior Court could not say with certainty that the plaintiffs could not succeed with their claim and rejected the motion to dismiss. The Court of Appeal clarified that the Superior Court never concluded that the plaintiffs could bring an action against private parties for recognition of their treaty rights and Aboriginal rights and title. 

The Court of Appeal noted that it had a limited jurisdiction to allow leave for appeal from an interlocutory judgment dismissing a motion to dismiss, and it found that the applicant (Compagnie Minière IOC Inc.) was not able to meet the necessary test. The applicant sought to characterize this case as one that raises a question of new public law that must be resolved immediately in order to obtain leave to appeal. The applicant both raised the costs of the hearing for them and insisted that the Superior Court decision could lead to a proliferation of claims against private parties in arguing that the matter required immediate resolution. However, the Court of Appeal found the costs of a hearing to be inherent in any litigation and the risk of a proliferation of claims remained hypothetical. The Court of Appeal found nothing so urgent as to justify it addressing the disputed issues immediately without the benefit of the factual base of a trial and a decision on the merits coming out of that trial.