Welcome to Cases That Should Have Gone to the Supreme Court of Canada, But Didn’t! This week, lawyer Kyla Lee discusses government contracts. Acumen Law Corporation lawyer Kyla Lee gives her take on a made-in-Canada court case each week and discusses why these cases should have been heard by Canada’s highest court: the Supreme Court of Canada.
J. Cote and Son had an excavating contract with the city of Burnaby which was cancelled because they were involved in litigation against the City of Burnaby on unrelated matters. The city of Burnaby–in its bylaws, has a provision that prohibits the awarding of any municipal contracts to a company that is involved in litigation with the city.
There is an obvious concern about this, which the J. Cote company took to the Supreme Court of Canada but were denied leave.
This concern is that by creating a provision that essentially prohibits a city from engaging in a business contract with a company because of other litigation, regardless of whether or not it’s related to what the company wants to engage in a contract with the city with and vice versa, the city is ultimately preventing access to the courts.
Watch the video for more.
