BOATING RESTRICTION REGULATIONS
Québec's legislation goes to court!

  .  .Rerun of the lake Montjoie saga!

In the early 1980s, an Eastern Townships citizen legally opposed the municipality of Saint-Denis-de-Brompton's regulation concerning motorboating. The municipality had requested an injonction ordering said citizen to take his motorboat out of lake in order to conform to its municipal regulation. At that point in time, municipalities had the power to prohibit or regulate the use of motorboats, through the Municipal Code or the Cities and Towns Act.

In those days, FAPEL had even prepared a model regulation on the subject, that associations only had to submit to their municipality for adoption. It therefore seemed perfectly normal that the municipality of Saint-Denis-de-Brompton had adopted a by-law prohibiting motorboating on lake Montjoie. It was also normal that a citizen who felt wronged by said by-law, would move to oppose it.

This opposition to the municipal by-law was accepted by the Superior Court and confirmed by the Court of Appeal. Conclusion: navigation is an exclusive juridiction of the federal gouvernment!

• "...a provincial legislation cannot, even in the pursuit of provincial objects, legislate in a manner that can interfere with an exclusively federal competence" (...) "The provinces cannot, for any reason whatsoever, suppress the public right to navigate" ...

Following this jugement, the Québec legislative dispositions that confered municipalities the power to prohibit or regulate the use of motorboats in their territory were abrogated. The Saint-Denis-de-Brompton by-law, like all other similar by-laws adopted by other Québec municipalities, were declared non constitutionnal. Cottager had no other option but to turn to the federal government and request that their chosen restrictions be integrated to the Boating Restriction Regulations, edicted under the Canada Shipping Act.

The Québec government never could stomach that decision. It recently adopted Law 106, a law that would, again, throw us into a political turmoil. This law modified the Municipal Code or the Cities and Towns Act to give back to municipalities the power to regulate motorboating and to impose a speed limit in a corridor up to 50 meters wide or less, along the shoreline of lakes.

It is the validity of this law which is now challenged in front of the Court!

If your municipality has adopted a boating restriction regulation by virtue of that law, beware! It may very well be declared unconstitutional!