Judge denies Ontario contractor's bid to return to work on 3 bridges
Allowing company back to work would disrupt status quo, judge says
Julmac Contracting, the Ontario company kicked off three major bridge projects in New Brunswick, will not be allowed to return to work while its lawsuit against the province over contract breaches drags on.
In a decision issued March 28, Justice Richard Petrie said he would not grant Julmac the injunction it had sought.
Julmac had asked for an interlocutory injunction, a provisional measure that would have allowed company employees to return to work on the Anderson and Centennial bridges in Miramichi, as well as the Mactaquac Dam bridge near Fredericton.
The injunction application had also asked the province not to hire third-party contractors to complete the work.
In his decision, Petrie wrote that the court did not have jurisdiction to grant the injunction under the 1973 Proceedings Against the Crown Act.
He said the court has jurisdiction to maintain the status quo while the lawsuit continues. Petrie disagreed with Julmac's argument that restoring the contractor to working on the contracts would be the status quo.
The company's definition of the status quo "would not simply preserve the status quo but in fact redefine the parties' contractual rights and likely represent a final remedy," Petrie wrote said.
David Outerbridge, one of the lawyers representing Julmac, declined to comment when reached Tuesday, noting that Julmac is appealing the decision.
The province's lawyer, Mark Heighton, did not respond to a request for comment.
In the facts of the case, Petrie cited an affidavit from Renee Morency-Cormier, the construction director with the Transportation and Infrastructure Department, who said Julmac had made little progress on the bridge projects, "and contractual completing dates were not achieved."
As well, the company "took an adversarial approach" to working with the department, Morency-Cormier said.
Petrie also cited an affidavit from Julmac owner Derek Martin, who said the province's concerns "were not valid."
Contractor sees 'irreparable financial harm'
Martin claimed that removing Julmac from the contracts brought the company "irreparable financial harm."
Work on the largest of the stalled Julmac contracts, the Centennial bridge, was pushed back from this summer, the province announced in February.
The provincial government's public tenders website currently says that new contracts for the Anderson and Mactaquac bridges are "pending." None are listed for the Centennial bridge.
CBC News requested an interview with the Department of Transportation and Infrastructure to understand the status of the three bridge projects, but spokesperson Jacob MacDonald said the province would not comment on matters before the courts.
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