An Act Respecting The Acceleration of Certain Infrastructure Projects: new obligations for expropriated parties and more rights to the expropriating parties

On December 10, 2020, the Quebec government adopted Bill 66, An Act Respecting The Acceleration of Certain Infrastructure Projects. Some of the measures of this law, particularly those relating to expropriation, will have a major impact on the rights of owners.

This new law proposes 4 acceleration measures for infrastructure projects, one of which directly affects private owners, namely the acceleration of expropriation procedures. This measure will apply to hundreds of projects, ranging from the construction of schools and senior’s residences, to the renovation of roads and hospitals.

Following the Act Respecting The Réseau Électrique Métropolitain¹  and the Act Respecting the Réseau Structurant de Transport en Commun de la Ville de Québec², the government creates new duties and obligations for expropriated parties and grants more rights to the expropriating parties.

Practically speaking, owners will be affected by the following measures:

• Removal of the right to challenge the right of the expropriating party to expropriate under Article 44 of the Expropriation Act³.
• The obligation to provide, within 60 days of the service of the expropriation notice, the documents justifying the payment of provisional compensation.
• The determination of provisional compensation by the expropriating party following the expropriation of a farm, a business or an industry without the possibility for the expropriated party to contest the amount.
• Removal of the right to contest the date of possession of the expropriated property.
• The obligation to give access to the expropriated site before taking possession so that the expropriating party can carry out assessments on the building. These may include environmental assessments.
• Expropriation with prior possession in the case of tunnel construction work. In this case, it will be up to the expropriated party to take action for damages against the expropriating party.

We invite you to contact one of our expropriation professionals with any additional questions.

_{1. RLRQ, c. R-25.02. 2. RLRQ, c. R-25.03. 3. RLRQ, c. E-24.}