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Constitutional law – Division of powers – Labour relations – Longshoring – Company carrying on single undertaking and normally and habitually providing crane and heavy equipment rental services in Quebec and, to lesser extent, longshoring services – Whether undertaking had to be characterized as federal – Constitution Act, 1867, ss. 91(1) and 92(10).

The applicant, Tessier Ltée, carried on an undertaking renting cranes for various purposes, including the loading and unloading of ships. It also engaged in road transportation and maintained and repaired equipment. In 2007, the respondent decided that, for 2006, Tessier’s activities were within provincial jurisdiction over labour relations because they could not be connected to any field of federal jurisdiction. Tessier unsuccessfully challenged that decision before the Commission des lésions professionnelles. The CLP found that the evidence did not show that Tessier’s raison d’être fell within federal jurisdiction. It held that Tessier was not a transportation undertaking within the meaning of s. 92(10) of the Constitution Act, 1867 and that the fact that longshoring was one component of the undertaking was not enough to characterize it as a federal undertaking. The CLP also noted that Tessier’s operations were not isolated from one another and that the employees could be interchanged among sectors – in short, that the undertaking was indivisible.

On judicial review, the Superior Court set aside the decision, finding that Tessier was a federal undertaking because it had been established that it was an indivisible undertaking normally and habitually engaged in an activity within federal jurisdiction, namely longshoring. The Court of Appeal restored the CLP’s decision. In its view, the undertaking was provincial in nature and, absent evidence that it was incorporated into a federal undertaking, the presumption that it fell under provincial jurisdiction over labour relations had not been rebutted. It noted that the existence of a federal undertaking had to be shown before Tessier’s indivisibility could be pleaded. Longshoring was only a minor part of Tessier’s activities and was incorporated into its broader equipment rental activities.