Motel Pierre Inc. v. Cité de Saint-Laurent

ABBorr J.:-Appellant sued the respondent municipality to recover the sum of $11,447.68 alleged to have been paid in error as business tax for the years 1959, 1960, 1961 and 1962. During that period, appellant operated a motel in 1 Que.

R.C.S.

the said municipality and the tax in question was paid as business tax levied at the rate of 8 per cent on the assessed rental value of the immoveable property occupied by the appellant. The tax was imposed under the authority of municipal By-law 158, enacted in 1934 under the authority of the Montreal Metropolitan Commission Act, 11 Geo. V, 140 as amended which, generally speaking, applied to all Abbott J. businesses in the municipality.

It is common ground that the motel operated by the appellant is a "hotel" within the meaning of that word as used in s. 33 of the Quebec License Act, R.S.Q. 1941, 76. That section reads as follows:

The License Act creates a provincially administered system of licensing certain specified types of business-including hotels-and provides for control and supervision of such businesses throughout the province. The possession of a license under the Act is a condition precedent to carrying on business.

The learned trial judge and the majority in the Court of Queen's Bench' held that the said s. 33 dealt only with license fees of the type contemplated under the Act in which it was contained, and had no application to a business tax of general application based upon rental value which is in issue here.

I share that opinion and am in respectful agreement with the reasons of Casey J. in the Court below which were concurred in by Rinfret, Owen and Brossard JJ.

I would dismiss the appeal with costs.