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Maritime Law - Whether the appellants should be deprived of their right to limit liability under the Convention on Limitation of Liability for Maritime Claims, 1976, as amended in 1996 - Whether the appellants should be deprived of the benefit of their insurance coverage - Whether the appellant Réal Vallée is personally liable - Marine Liability Act, S.C. 2001, c. 6, Schedule I, art. 4 - Marine Insurance Act, S.C. 1993, c. 22, section 53(2).

The appellant Réal Vallée is a fisherman who operated the fishing boat Realice in the St. Lawrence River between Baie Comeau and Rivière à Claude in the crab fishing zone designated “Zone 17”. At the time of the incident, Mr. Vallée was 58 years of age and had been fishing since the age of 15. He is the sole shareholder and president of the appellant Peracomo Inc. which owns the fishing vessel Realice. In 2005, Mr. Vallée was fishing for crab when one of his anchors snagged an obstacle which turned out to be a cable known as the Sunoque I. The respondents Société Telus Communications and Hydro-Québec co own the Sunoque I while Bell Canada has a right of use in it. After snagging the cable in 2005, Mr. Vallée saw a map or a chart in a local museum (a former church) which showed a line drawn running through the area in which he fished and which had “abandonné” written on it by hand. On this basis, when he snagged the cable again in 2006, he believed that the cable was abandoned and proceeded to cut the cable with a circular electric saw and buoyed the end with the caught anchor. He returned to the same area in the next day or two, freed the anchor and again cut the cable a second time. The Telus respondents thereafter filed suit against the appellants to recover the costs to repair the severed cable.