SUPREME COURT OF CANADA
Terrasses Zarolega Inc. v. R.I.O., [1981] 1 S.C.R. 94
Date: 1981-02-03
Les Terrasses Zarolega Inc., Joseph Zappia, Gérald Robinson, René Lépine and Andrew Gaty Appellants;
and
La Régie des installations olympiques
Respondent.
1980: November 4; 1981: February 3.
Present: Laskin C.J. and Martland, Ritchie, Estey, McIntyre, Chouinard and Lamer JJ.
ON APPEAL FROM THE COURT OF APPEAL FOR QUEBEC
Administrative law — Civil procedure — Declaratory judgment — Expropriation of Olympic Village — Jurisdiction of arbitration committee — Act respecting the Olympic Village, 1976 (Qué.), c. 43, ss. 6. 10, 27 — Civil Code, art. 407 — Code of Civil Procedure. art. 453.
The case arose following expropriation of the Olympic Village, as a result of which respondent was made owner of the Olympic Village and of accessory assets and rights as of April 6, 1976. Appellant Zarolega had agreed in the fall of 1974 with the Comité organisateur des jeux olympiques (COJO) to build and finance the Olympic Village. Following meetings of a Parliamentary Commission in January 1975, COJO and Zarolega were invited to negotiate a new agreement. A letter of intent was signed on February 4, 1975. They were again asked to renegotiate and a new agreement was drawn up in January 1976, but this agreement was not signed by all the parties. The expropriation then took place, terminating relations between the parties, making respondent subject to a number of obligations, releasing COJO from its obligations to appellant and creating an arbitration committee to determine the expropriation compensation to which appellant was entitled. Before the committee was even created, appellants applied to the Superior Court for a declaratory judgment on seven questions relating to:
(a) determining the agreement in effect between the parties at the time the Act was passed (Question I);
(b) the action before the arbitration committee (Questions II and III);
(c) the relations between Zarolega and COJO, and the latter's obligations regarding claims brought by creditors against Zarolega (Question IV);
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(d) the relations between Zarolega and respondent and the latter's obligations regarding claims brought by creditors against Zarolega (Questions V, VI and Vll).
Held: The appeal should be dismissed, except as to Question Ill.
The Court concluded that it is to say the least premature to speak of confiscation, since the arbitration committee has not yet even been created, and it answered the questions presented as follows:
—Question I: not on appeal;
—Question II: the Court of Appeal properly found that the Superior Court lacked jurisdiction to decide what the compensation should include and therefore no answer should be given to this question;
—Question III: by its very form Question III only requires an answer if Question II has been answered in the negative: the Court varied the decision of the Court of Appeal and gave no answer to this question;
—Question IV: affirming the Court of Appeal, the Court concluded that COJO was released from any obligation to compensate Zarolega;
—Question V and VI: the Court answered in the negative, adopting the reasons of the lower courts;
—Question VII: the Court gave no answer, since this question only required an answer if an affirmative answer was given to Questions V and VI.
Anisminic Ltd. v. Foreign Compensation Commission et al., [1969] 1 All E.R. 208; Duque' v. Town of Sainte-Agathe-des-Monts, [1977] 2 S.C.R. 1132; Vachon v. Attorney General of the Province of Quebec, [1979] 1 S.C.R. 555; Bell v. Ontario Human Rights Commission, [1971] S.C.R. 756; Barraclough v. Brown, [1897] A.C. 615; City of Lethbridge v. Canadian Western Natural Gas, Light, Heat and Power Co. Ltd., [1923] S.C.R. 652; Cassidy v. Stuart, [1928] 3 D.L.R. 879; Towah Interest Ltd. v. Procureur général du Québec, [1968] R.P. 378; Société québécoise d'exploitation minière v. Hébert et al., [1974] C.A. 78; Bertho v. Hôpital de Chicoutimi, [1976] C.A. 154; Campisi v. Procureur général du Québec, [1978] C.A. 520, referred to.
APPEAL from a decision of the Court of Appeal of Quebec[1], varying a judgment of the Superior Court. Appeal dismissed, except as to Question III.
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Mitchell Klein, Pierre Pinard and Sylvain Lussier, for the appellants.
Lorne Giroux, Mireille Zigby and Gilles Jolicoeur, for the respondent.
English version of the judgment of the Court delivered by
CHOUINARD J.—This appeal is from three decisions of the Court of Appeal of Quebec, on as many appeals from a judgment of the Superior Court on appellants' motion for a declaratory judgment pursuant to art. 453 C.C.P.
The case arose following expropriation of the Olympic Village by the Act respecting the Olympic Village, 1976 (Que.), c. 43. By that Act, the Régie des installations olympiques (RIO) was made the owner of the Olympic Village and of accessory assets and rights as of April 6, 1976. The Olympic Village was the 'facility provided to accommodate athletes, their trainers and representatives of national delegations who came to Montreal specifically for the 1976 Olympic Games.
The following summary of the facts is taken from the opinion of Turgeon J.A. who rendered the judgment of the Court of Appeal:
[TRANSLATION] In October and November 1974, two agreements were concluded between the Comité organisateur des jeux olympiques /976 (hereinafter referred to as COJO) and Zarolega, the object of which was the construction and financing of the Olympic Village (Exhibits P-l and P-2).
The first, so-called "principal" agreement was not financially very advantageous to COJO. Under this agreement, Zarolega was to make an investment of four million dollars, and further undertook to obtain private financing for a loan on first hypothec of some twenty million dollars. The difference of six million between the cost of the project, then estimated at about thirty mil-lion, and the investment made by Zarolega, plus the first hypothec, was to be assumed by COJO and guaranteed by a second hypothec.
The recovery of COJO's investment was directly linked to the profits made by Zarolega, over a five-year period, from operation of the project after the Olympic Games.
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At COJO's request, a Parliamentary Commission was formed to review the range of problems relating to the holding of the 1976 Olympic Games. At that time, the estimated cost of the project had risen from thirty to fifty million dollars. Under P-1, COJO had to make up the financing discrepancy between Zarolega's investment and the cost of the project, and it became clear that marketing such a costly residential project reduced COJO's earning potential.
It should be noted that under Exhibit P-3, Les Terrasses Zarolega had purchased from the City of Montreal the land on which the Olympic Village was to be built.
Following meetings of the Parliamentary Commission in January 1975, construction work was temporarily suspended and COJO and Zarolega were invited to renegotiate a new agreement.
A letter of intent (P-4) was negotiated between COJO and Zarolega and submitted to the Parliamentary Commission in February 1975. The parties were then asked to prepare by July 1975 a new agreement, which would incorporate the provisions of the letter of intent of February 4, 1975.
Between February and July 1975, cost estimates continued to rise to a figure of seventy-four million dollars.
At meetings of the Parliamentary Commission in July 1975, COJO and Zarolega were invited to again renegotiate their earlier agreements. Fresh negotiations resulted in a second letter of intent (Exhibit P-5), which was submitted to the Parliamentary Commission in July 1975. It was then agreed that a new agreement would be prepared based on this second letter of intent, the effect of which would be to improve COJO's position, since it would be assured of recovering a large part of its investment through a purchase option given to it. The January 1976 agreement (Exhibit P-6), the "Comprehensive Agreement", was the outcome of negotiations which lasted throughout 1975. This agreement was not signed by all the parties in the matter.
This was followed by the Act respecting the Olympic Village, assented to on April 30, 1976, making the RIO owner of the Olympic Village as of April 6, 1976.
This terminated negotiations between the par-ties, as their respective rights and obligations were now subject, as a result of this Act, to a new legal frame of reference.
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The RIO was made subject to a number of obligations which will be dealt with below. The City of Montreal and COJO, for their part, were released from their obligations to the former owner Zarolega under the contracts entered into between them and the latter, and relating to the Olympic Village.
The Act further provides (s. 10) that "The former owner shall receive as compensation the sums determined by the arbitration committee contemplated in Division III". Sections 15 to 25 of Division IIl provide for the composition and procedure of the arbitration committee, and ss. 26 to 34 deal with the arbitration committee's award.
Before the arbitration committee was created, and it still has not been, appellants applied to the Superior Court for a declaratory judgment on the following points:
I—Which agreement was the agreement in force between Zarolega and COJO immediately prior to the passage .of Bill 25, the Development Agreement, Exhibits P-l and P-2, or the Comprehensive Agreement, Exhibit P-6(A)1 and ancillary documents?
II—Is the indemnity to which Plaintiffs are entitled in virtue of the passage of Bill 25 limited to the items set forth in Section 27 thereof?
III—If the answer to II above is no, upon which agreements are Plaintiffs entitled to indemnity?
(a) The Development Agreement and
(i) Clause 7 of the February 4, 1975 Letter of Intent, Exhibit P-4 which deals specifically with expropriation and which clause was con-firmed by collateral letter on the occasion of the execution of each of the ELEVEN (11) Deeds of Loan signed before the 29th day of January 1976, the date of the Comprehensive Agreement (See Exhibit P-8, letter agreements dated June 6, 1975, September 23, 1975, and January 15, 1976, each of which annexed the letter of February 19, 1975, which in Section 3 thereof confirmed Clause 7 of the Letter of Intent); or
(b) The Comprehensive Agreement.
IV—Has Bill 25 released COJO from the obligation to indemnify ZAROLEGA with respect to claims of
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unpaid creditors pursuant to agreements executed between Zarolega and such creditor(s) with the approval of COJO, where such claims result from services rendered, work done and/or materials supplied on or before the 30th day of April 1976?
V—ls RIO bound to indemnify Zarolega with respect to claims of unpaid creditors pursuant to agreements executed between Zarolega and such creditor(s), with the approval of COJO where such claims result from services rendered, work done and/or materials supplied on or before the 30th day of April 1976?
VI—Is RIO bound to indemnify Zarolega with respect to claims of unpaid creditors pursuant to agreements executed between Zarolega and such creditor(s) with the approval of COJO where such claims result from " ... the performance of obligations undertaken by the contractors, sub-contractors, suppliers of materials and lessors of goods or services for work done, materials supplied and goods or services leased to the Olympic Village"?
VII—If the answer to V and/or VI above is yes, is Zarolega entitled to be relieved from the contestation of the claims of such creditors, as provided in Section 220 C.P.?
These questions, in my view, have a fourfold purpose: (a) determining the agreement in effect between the parties at the time the Act was passed (Question I); (b) the action before the arbitration committee (Questions 11 and III); (c) the relations between Zarolega and COJO, and the latter's obligations regarding claims brought by creditors against Zarolega (Question IV); (d) the relations between Zarolega and RIO, and the latter's obligations regarding claims brought by creditors against Zarolega (Questions V, VI and VIl).
Counsel for the appellants informed the Court that there are against Zarolega some four million dollars in claims relating to the Olympic Village.
The questions presented by appellants are not all interrelated and must be examined separately.
First, however, I think it is proper to dispose of appellants' argument that the Act respecting the
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Olympic Village is a confiscatory statute, which carries out an expropriation without compensation.
Their factum states:
Inherent in all of the Questions before this Honorable Court ..., is the pretention of [Appellants] ... that the Act is confiscatory, and should be interpreted to result in expropriation without indemnification.
It is to say the least premature to speak of confiscation, before the arbitration committee has even been created, or has given any ruling what-ever regarding the compensation to which Zarolega is entitled under this Act.
Respondent properly wrote:
[TRANSLATION] . . . Bill 25, far from confiscating private property without compensation, on the contrary expressly provides that the former owner will receive compensation for loss of the property.
Further:
[TRANSLATION] In the case at bar, the Quebec legislator saw fit to intervene by a special statute and expropriate the Olympic Village himself. Accordingly, Bill 25 creates a special system of rights and obligations between RIO, COJO and the former owners. In particular, this special legislation provides for the payment of compensation to the former owner. For the purpose of determining the sums of this compensation, the legislator has provided a special, complete and self-contained procedure apart from the general law. The legislator clearly and specifically intended for this matter to be determined by an arbitration committee, and took care to indicate the composition, powers, procedure, decision deadlines and implementation of the award of that committee. The procedure which the Act provides for the committee is complete, self-contained and capable of providing the parties with satisfaction.
QUESTION I
The trial judge held that at the time the Act respecting the Olympic Village was passed the agreement in effect was the "Comprehensive Agreement". No appeal was brought from this part of the judgment, which is now res judicata.
QUESTION II
The question of whether the compensation to which appellants are entitled is limited to the items
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set forth in s. 27 of the Act is equivalent to asking whether the word "include" preceding this list has a limiting effect.
Section 27 reads as follows:
27. The compensation shall include the investments of the former owner, the true value of the promotional and managerial services he has rendered respecting the construction of the Olympic Village and interest at the rate and from the dates fixed by the arbitrators.
Respondent pleaded at the outset that the Superior Court lacked jurisdiction to decide this question, and that it should be disposed of by the arbitration committee.
The Superior Court judge took the opposite view, and proceeded to dispose of the matter, finding that the word "include" in s. 27 does not have a limiting effect, and that appellants could present to the arbitration committee other items in addition to those listed.
Respondent appealed from this judgment con-currently with the judgment on Question III. These judgments were the subject of the first decision of the Court of Appeal disputed, by the appeal at bar. I will deal with Question III below.
The Court of Appeal found for the respondent on Question II and held that, under the Act respecting the Olympic Village, the Superior Court lacked jurisdiction to decide this matter, which must remain unresolved.
I agree with the Court of Appeal that no answer should be given to Question II.
Turgeon J.A. undertook a review of the Act and its principal provisions:
[TRANSLATION]The Act respecting the Olympic Village provides that the Board becomes owner of the Olympic Village as of April 6, 1976, of movable property found on the premises, of movable property acquired with the sums of money deposited in any bank account opened jointly by the organizing committee and the former owner, of the equipment, machinery and vehicles which have served, serve or are to serve for the construction of the Olympic Village and were owned by the former owner, of the former owner's claims arising from contracts made with the City of Montreal or the
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committee, or in connection with these contracts or with construction work and the negotiable instruments issued in connection with them, of the rights of the former owner regarding any sum of money deposited in any bank account opened jointly by it and by the committee, and of the rights of the former owner regarding sums of money paid or payable by the committee under the terms of the hypothecary loan contracts made by it with the former owner.
Section 10 of the said Act provides that the former owner shall receive as compensation the sums deter-mined by the arbitration committee contemplated in Division III.
Division III provides that the arbitration committee shall consist of three members appointed by the Lieutenant-Governor in Council, in accordance with the procedure, formalities and conditions indicated in the Act.
Section 26 further states that the arbitration commit-tee's award shall state reasons and be signed by the members who concur in it.
Section 27 indicates what the compensation shall include, namely the former owner's investments, the true value of the promotional and managerial services it has rendered, and interest at the rate and from the dates fixed by the arbitrators.
Under s. 34, the arbitration committee's award may be executed by the authority of the court having jurisdiction, upon proceedings instituted by one of the parties.
[…]
The arbitration committee contemplated by the Act constituting the Olympic Village is a body created by legislation, exercising quasi-judicial powers. This committee corresponds to the criteria for a judicial body, because its decision directly affects the ownership right of respondents and it has a duty to act judicially. Thus, s. 20 requires it to hold public hearings, it has the power to summon witnesses, compel them to appear and testify, and it must give reasons for its award, which may be implemented by authority of the court having jurisdiction. The chairman has the powers of a judge of the Superior Court for the conduct of hearings of the committee. All these aspects of its functions empower the committee to act judicially and ensure that it meets the principal criteria of quasi-judicial operation in exercising its jurisdiction.
The opinion of the Court of Appeal is well summed up in the following two passages, which I quote:
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[TRANSLATION] I am of the view that the Superior Court should not intervene by a declaratory judgment when the legislator has specifically provided that the matter is to be decided by some other tribunal. Both English and Canadian precedents would appear to lead to this conclusion.
[…]
I think it can be said that Canadian authorities is to the effect that the Superior Court should not use its declaratory power when a lower tribunal has been created by the legislator to decide on some particular issue.
The difficulty with appellants' argument stems from the distinction which they would have this Court make between the sums that are to be included in the compensation and the extent or scope of the compensation, in particular the items on which these sums are to be based. This is the foundation of their entire argument.
Thus, they suggest that the arbitration commit-tee only has the power to determine the sums, while it is for the Superior Court to determine the items for which those sums may be awarded.
ln their factum they state:
It is clear from the terms of Section 10 that the arbitration committee has only been granted jurisdiction to determine the sums to which Appellants are entitled to as compensation.
The Act, however, does not grant the arbitration committee the right to decide the scope, or extent, of the indemnity to which Appellants are entitled.
The Act does not state "the former owner shall receive compensation for such matters, and in such amounts, as the board, in their sole discretion, shall decide", or similar language implying absolute discretion, or jurisdiction.
The Act simply states that the former owner "shall receive as compensation the sums determined by the arbitration committee ..."
and they further state:
In the present case, the Legislature has granted the arbitration committee jurisdiction to establish sums—but nothing more. It is for the Courts to determine the extent, or scope, of the jurisdiction granted the arbitration committee by the Act.
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I cannot accept this interpretation. When s. 10 states that: "The former owner shall receive as compensation the sums determined by the arbitration committee contemplated in Division III", these sums must obviously relate to something, to certain items claimed; and in order for sums to be determined in conjunction with items claimed, these items must be determined. There is no basis in the Act for concluding that the legislator intended to make any court other than the arbitration committee responsible for determining the items claimed, on the basis of which various sums are to be determined for inclusion in the compensation to be paid. On the contrary and the reason is precisely because the legislator intended to make the arbitration committee responsible for deter-mining the compensation and the items included in it.
Accordingly, appellants were not asking the Superior Court to determine the arbitration commit-tee's jurisdiction, but rather to supplant the latter and determine what the Act requires the arbitration committee to determine.
For this reason, the House of Lords decision in Anisminic Ltd. v. Foreign Compensation Commission et al[2] and the other cases cited to the same effect can have no application in the case at bar.
I also do not believe that the following cases relied upon by appellants have the effect suggested by them: Duquet v. Town of Sainte-Agathe-des-Monts[3], Vachon v. Attorney General of the Province of Quebec[4] and Bell v. Ontario Human Rights Commissions[5].
In Duquet, a taxpayer was asking that a taxation by-law, under which the city was preparing to have his property sold, be declared ultra vires and void. The Court rejected the distinction between a preventive and a curative action, and held the declaratory procedure admissible, as being within the scope of art. 453 C.C.P.
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In Vachon, an application was made to have declared void Social Aid regulations under which the appellants' benefits were reduced.
In Bell, the case concerned the Ontario Human Rights Commission's jurisdiction to hear the complaint brought before it.
The case at bar does not concern regulatory nullity nor the lack or excess of jurisdiction of the arbitration committee, all cases recognized by art. 846 C.C.P. and by judicial authority as being subject to the exercise of the supervisory and controlling power of the Superior Court.
Rather, the question is whether the Superior Court may intervene when the issue is one which the law has confided to an arbitration committee.
As Turgeon J. observed, the House of Lords held in Barraclough v. Brown[6] that there is no basis for a declaratory judgment when the matter has been confided to a lower court, and I quote the following passages from Lord Herschell at p. 620, passages which were cited by appellants:
.. I do not think the appellant can claim to recover by virtue of the statute, and at the same time insist upon doing so by means other than those prescribed by the statute which alone confers the right.
It was argued for the appellant that, even if not entitled to recover the expenses by action in the High Court, he was, at all events, entitled to come to that court for a declaration that on the true interpretation of the statute he had a right to recover them. It might be enough to say that no such case was made by appellant's claim. But apart from this, 1 think it would be very mischievous to hold that when a party is compelled by statute to resort to an inferior court he can come first to the High Court to have his right to recover—the very matter relegated to the inferior Court-determined. Such a proposition was not supported by authority, and is, 1 think, unsound in principle.
Counsel for the appellants pointed out that Turgeon J.A. did not cite the first paragraph of the foregoing passage, and sought to distinguish this case by arguing that in the case at bar appellants'
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remedy is not based exclusively on the Act respecting the Olympic Village, but as well on art. 407 C.C., which reads as follows:
407. No one can be compelled to give up his property, except for public utility and in consideration of a just indemnity previously paid.
The principle stated in art. 407 is beyond question a part of the civil law of Quebec: the Act respecting the Olympic Village constitutes an application of this principle, but I do not see how appellants could claim to exercise a remedy above and beyond this special statute.
In City of Lethbridge v. Canadian Western Natural Gas, Light, Heat and Power Co. Ltd.[7], this Court held that even assuming that it had the power to do so, the Court should not intervene when the legislator has seen fit to create a lower court with jurisdiction to dispose of the matter on which a declaratory judgment has been sought.
I quote Anglin J., at p. 659:
... Out of respect to the legislature and to carry into effect the spirit, if not the letter, of its policy, as expressed in the Public Utilities Act, the courts, although they may not have been denuded of jurisdiction to entertain such an action as that now before us, should, 1 think, decline to exercise that jurisdiction, if they possess it, and should relegate the parties to the board which the legislature has constituted to deal with such cases and has clothed with powers adequate to enable it to do full and complete justice in the premises.
and Mignault J. at p. 663:
... there can be no doubt, even admitting that the respondent violated its contract with the appellant, that the court should not exercise its extraordinary powers and grant such an injunction, if another convenient and equally effective remedy is available to the appellant.
Finally, a declaratory judgment will not be rendered when it will serve little or no purpose.
In Cassidy v. Stuart[8], Masten J. observed at p. 883:
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... the jurisdiction will not, as a rule, be exercised where the declaration would be useless or embarrassing or where some other statutory mode of proceeding is provided.
And Professor de Smith, in Judicial Review of Administrative Action, 4th ed., London, Stevens & Sons Limited, 1980, at p. 513:
... the broadest judicial discretion may be exercised in determining whether a case is one in which declaratory relief ought to be awarded .. .
The court must be satisfied that the award of a declaration will serve a useful purpose, .. .
As the Court pointed out to counsel for the appellants at the hearing, the declaratory judgment they are seeking in the case at bar could only be of very limited usefulness in the circumstances. Question II is so formulated that the finding could only be that the word "include" in s. 27 of the Act respecting the Olympic Village does not have a limiting effect. This would leave the issue unresolved respecting each of the items individually which appellants might wish to submit to the arbitration committee, so that the declaratory proceeding might have to be begun again for each of these.
As to this, see also the following decisions of the Quebec courts: Towah Interest Ltd. v. Procureur général du Québec[9]; Société québécoise d'exploitation minière v. Hébert et al.[10]; Bertho v. Hôpital de Chicoutimi[11]; Campisi v. Procureur général du Québec[12].
For these reasons, therefore, 1 conclude like the Court of Appeal that no answer should be given to Question Il.
QUESTION III
On the question of the agreement under which appellants were entitled to compensation, as the trial judge had already found that the "Comprehensive Agreement" was the one in effect between the parties at the time the Act respecting the Olympic Village was adopted, he similarly held
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that appellants were entitled to be compensated in accordance with this agreement.
The Court of Appeal, reversing the judgment of the Superior Court, found that there was no connection between the interpretation to be given to s. 27 of the Act and the agreements placed in evidence by appellants.
However, by its very form, Question III only requires an answer if Question II has been answered in the negative; but, as we have seen, no answer should be given to Question II.
Further, as it will be the responsibility of the arbitration committee to interpret the various relevant provisions of the Act, in order to determine the sums which shall be included in the compensation, I feel it should also be responsible for answering this question if need be.
Thus, I would vary the decision of the Court of Appeal to state that no answer should be given to Question III.
QUESTION IV
This question was dealt with by the second decision of the Court of Appeal against which this appeal is brought.
As the Superior Court answered in the negative, the appeal was brought by COJO and was allowed.
In my opinion, the answer to this question is contained in s. 6 of the Act, which reads as follows:
6. The City of Montreal and the organizing commit-tee are released from their obligations towards the former owner and his assignees under contracts made between them and the former owner concerning the Olympic Village; such obligations are maintained in favour of the board.
Any recourse the organizing committee may have against the former owner pursuant to contracts made between him, the organizing committee and the City of Montreal or as a consequence of the construction of the Olympic Village are transferred to the board.
In view of such a clear provision, I can only conclude that if COJO was under an obligation to
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compensate the former owner, Zarolega, for claims made by unpaid creditors, pursuant to their contracts with the latter, this obligation is among those from which COJO is released by s. 6, and for this and the other reasons stated by Turgeon J.A. I would dismiss the appeal.
QUESTIONS V, VI AND VII
These questions were dealt with by the third decision of the Court of Appeal concerned in this appeal.
The Superior Court and the Court of Appeal answered Questions V and VI in the negative.
As Question VII only required an answer if an affirmative answer was given to Questions V and VI, the Superior Court left it unanswered. The Court of Appeal nonetheless thought it advisable to state that the Act respecting the Olympic Village [TRANSLATION] "in no way creates a formal surety arrangement for Zarolega", and I agree with this.
Appellants referred to several passages from Turgeon J.A.'s opinion, in which he indicates an apparent mistrust of them by the legislator at the time this Act was adopted. These observations in no way affect the merits of Turgeon J.A.'s opinion, which I adopt as the basis for my own finding that the appeal should be dismissed.
With regard to the appeal against decision No. 09-000899-773 of the Court of Appeal, relating to Questions II and III, I would allow this appeal and vary the decision to find that no answer should be given to Question III. The appeal is dismissed as to the remainder.
I would dismiss the appeal from decision No. 09-000919-779 of the Court of Appeal regarding Question IV.
Finally, I would dismiss the appeal from decision No. 09-000926-774 of the Court of Appeal regarding Questions V, VI and VII.
As in the Superior Court and the Court of Appeal, I would not award costs.
Appeal dismissed, except as to Question III.