VIA and CN in Quebec Superior Court, Part 4

JUDGMENT

(On Objection to a Request for Pre-Commitment)

(Relevance and Excessive Scope of the Work to be Done) (Art. 228 CPC))

In Part 3 of this ever-enlarging series of posts about VIA's Quebec Superior Court quest for a permanent injunction against CN's Crossing Supplement, I added an innocuous paragraph that just became reality in mid-December. It read:

On August 7, 2025 the Honourable Frederic Perodeau appointed the Honourable Donald Bisson, to provide special management of this proceeding, decide all incidental applications and make all appropriate orders, until the case is set for trial and judgment. Then, on September 23, 2025 he issued scheduling after a 90-minute hearing - the pre-trial examination of VIA representatives to be held between October 14-31, 2025 with hearing of CN's objections scheduled for December 1, 2025.

The judgment in this post, by the Honourable Donald Bisson, who was named to the Quebec Superior Court in 2014, appeared on the Quebec Superior Court website on December 10, 2025 (top - title page). The deliberations actually lasted into December 2, hence this topic was pleaded in written form. I translated this judgment with the help of Google Translate (sometimes a little syntax was lost in translation!). As in previous Court-related posts, where appropriate, important selected direct quotes from Court documents are in "quotations", (though the vast majority of the judgment comprising this post is complete, albeit translated from French) with editorial notes appearing in [square brackets]. 

After reviewing this post, I am sharing it as it addresses a minor though important sliver of VIA's injunction material, namely its request for information from CN. The timeline for argumentation plans for all other objections is different from the timetable for application 5.4 and the Court's decision on these other objections will follow in 2026. However, as with all other parts of this legal saga, each sliver contributes to the whole pie which is - still on the 'legal kitchen window sill' still cooling - soon to be served.

So, watch for Part 5...sometime!

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The judgment pertains to VIA and CN arguments over documents to be included in precommiting to the injunction, and whether the documents are unreasonable to include, largely due to the amount of time and effort they would require. CN and VIA had previously agreed to exchange documents as a pre-commitment before proceeding with out-of-court examinations for discovery. VIA asked for crossing data dating back to 2020 [!][aka request 5.4], to which CN objected. The Court had to decide whether CN has the right not to respond to VIA's request. The Court did not accept VIA’s arguments and concluded that VIA has not demonstrated relevance, upholding CN's objection to doing so.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. Introduction: the context and the issue in dispute

2. Analysis and discussion

2.1 Applicable law

2.2 The decision of the Court

2.2.1 Relevance

2.2.2 The scale of the task: Excessive?

2.2.3 Conclusion

1. INTRODUCTION: THE CONTEXT AND THE ISSUE IN DISPUTE

The Court is seized of an objection by the defendant, Canadian National Railway Company (“CN”), to the disclosure of documents in response to a request for pre-commitment in the context of pre-existing investigations, in the following context.

The plaintiff, VIA Rail Canada Inc. (“VIA”), is a federal Crown corporation mandated to operate a passenger rail transportation business across Canada. Apart from a few sections of track owned by VIA, it does not own a rail network. Its passenger trains operate primarily on CN tracks.[1]

Starting in 2022, VIA Rail began using Venture trains manufactured by Siemens. These replaced the Legacy trains previously used by VIA Rail.

On October 11, 2024, citing federal regulations[2], CN implemented restrictions that effectively required Venture engineers to slow down and visually verify that the signaling devices (lights, bells, or barriers) at more than 300 level crossings in the Quebec City-Windsor corridor were functioning properly for a minimum period before proceeding. Normally, such a verification is not necessary because the crossings are equipped with systems that automatically activate these devices in a timely manner. This restriction is known as the "Crossing Supplement."

CN imposed these restrictions on Venture trains because it considered them to pose a "shunting" problem. Shunting is the technical means by which the arrival of a train near a level crossing triggers the automated signaling devices.

Subsequently, on November 27, 2024 CN imposed version 2 of this Crossing Supplement on VIA Rail, followed by version 3 on February 20, 2025, then version 4 on August 29, 2025, and finally version 5 on September 13, 2025. The details of these restrictions are irrelevant here.

Suffice it to say that VIA Rail believes these restrictions, which cause significant delays to scheduled timetables and severely disrupt its operations, are unjustified because they are disproportionate and unreasonable. According to VIA Rail, the relevant data does not demonstrate that the Venture trains have a shunting problem, and numerous tests would prove the contrary. VIA Rail considers that CN is acting arbitrarily and in bad faith, and that these restrictions are actually motivated by another dispute between the parties currently before the Canadian Transportation Agency.

VIA then filed proceedings in Superior Court in early March 2025. While reserving its right to damages (the amount of which remains to be determined), VIA is essentially seeking a permanent injunction prohibiting CN from implementing the restrictions in question.

CN vigorously contests VIA's request for an injunction and damages, denying any bad faith and arguing that the restrictions it implemented in October 2024 are necessary for public safety and that such safety imperatives must prevail over VIA's commercial interests.

As part of the proceedings, the parties agreed to exchange documents as a pre-commitment before proceeding with out-of-court examinations for discovery. In response to various pre-commitment requests made by VIA in a letter dated August 8, 2025, CN objected to request 5.4.

The Court is therefore seized of this objection under article 228 of the Code of Civil Procedure (“CPC”).

Here is request 5.4 made by VIA:

5.4. The following [short warning time] data in connection with (1) all VIA Corridor subdivisions (including Bridge, Chatham, Drummondville, Dundas, Grimsby, Guelph, Kingston West, Kingson East, Montreal, Oakville, Saint Hyacinthe), (2) CN’s US subdivisions with regional passenger service, including Venture equipment, in regular service (including Joliet, Chicago, Champaign, Centralia, Flint, South Bend), and (3) CN’s Edson and Wainwright US subdivisions (predominantly freight mainline):

5.4.1. IXS crossing log data for all grade crossings on the subject subdivisions, since January 1, 2020, with the understanding that the IXS logs continuously overwrite and thus these logs may be partial depending on the frequency in which CN historically collects the data.

5.4.2. OS/train event data (including train type, consist information, and timestamps at key mileposts for passenger, freight, and all other train movements) covering entirety of the subject subdivision for same period as IXS crossing data logs.

5.4.3. Defect detector log data (passenger, freight, all train movements) for all detectors along entirety of subject subdivision for same period as IXS crossing data logs.

5.4.4. Grade crossing configuration, settings and location plans and other for all grade crossings on the subject subdivisions which are current in effect or were in effect since January 1, 2020.

In response to this request, CN refused to answer, arguing that collecting and organizing the requested information would entail unreasonable effort, and that VIA had not demonstrated its relevance. According to CN, collecting and organizing the information requested by VIA would require a completely disproportionate effort considering: i) the voluminous information and data already provided to VIA; and ii) the lack of relevance given the stated benefit VIA intended to derive from it.

CN filed an affidavit of Mr. Elliottt Kaye dated November 21, 2025. Mr. Kaye is the Signals and Communications Quality Assurance Manager at CN in the United States. He was questioned about his affidavit by VIA on December 2, 2025, in the presence of the Court and all parties. This questioning took place in the context of a hearing that also addressed a series of other objections based on various privileges. The evidentiary phase took longer than anticipated, so at the close of the evidentiary phase following the December 2, 2025 hearing[3], the Court ordered the parties to submit written arguments with respect to all objections, including this one relating to Claim 5.4. The timeline for the argument plans for all other objections is different from the timeline for Claim 5.4, and the Court’s decision on these other objections will follow in 2026.

VIA disputes CN's position, arguing that pre-commitment request 5.4 is excessively relevant to the dispute and that CN's efforts in compiling the documents are not as extensive as it claims. According to VIA:

• The CN data on short warning times, referred to in pre-commitment request 5.4, are the most relevant data in the present dispute between VIA and CN, as they directly address CN's alleged justification for imposing and maintaining versions 1 through 5 of the Crossing Supplements.
• This data is essential for the Court to determine the reasonableness of the restrictions and the necessity of maintaining them. In this instance, request 5.4 is the only pre-commitment request submitted by VIA Rail that targets CN's raw data, independent of analyses already conducted and whose parameters have already been selected or influenced by CN.
• During his examination, Mr. Kaye of CN acknowledged that the data collection work is realistic and comparable to the data collection work carried out in connection with VIA Rail's other pre-commitment requests and with the work requested and completed regarding Transport Canada's Ministerial Order of December 10, 2024.

The Court must therefore decide whether CN has the right not to respond to VIA's pre-commitment request. 5.4

2. ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION

The Court begins by examining the applicable law.

2.1 Applicable Law [legal discussion not translated nor included here, dealing with balancing timely disclosure of evidence with access to justice.] The Court is now applying these principles.

2.2 The Court’s Decision

The debate therefore centers on: 1) the amount of work CN must undertake to fulfill request 5.4, given the number of documents already provided to VIA; and 2) the relevance of the documents requested by VIA.

As we have seen, Quebec courts have repeatedly recognized that a party cannot require the opposing party to make an unreasonable effort to comply with a request for the production of documents. The key lies in the concept of unreasonable effort, and of course, in the concept of relevance. The Court begins by addressing the relevance of the information requested.

2.2.1 Relevance

The Court reproduces again VIA’s request 5.4 to CN [same as above, 5.4 to 5.4.4]

According to VIA, the information sought under pre-commitment request 5.4 is directly related to the facts alleged in VIA’s amended originating application of September 18, 2025 and CN’s defence of November 12, 2025.

According to VIA, pre-commitment request 5.4 seeks short warning time data for all corridor subdivisions served by VIA Rail Venture trains, as well as for CN subdivisions in the United States served by Venture trains similar to VIA Rail's. [I'm not sure of the relevance of including freight-only Alberta subdivisions]. VIA Rail's request seeks disclosure of CN's short warning time data for a representative sample of its rail network, unbiased by CN's selection of parameters. VIA Rail argues that this is the most important pre-commitment request for the purposes of this litigation, as the data is not only relevant but essential for an objective analysis (free from CN's pre-selected parameters) of CN's justification for imposing the Crossing Supplements.

VIA adds that, in its view, Request 5.4 identifies four specific subcategories of data that essentially correspond to the same types of data categories requested by Transport Canada in the Ministerial Order of December 10, 2024, namely:

For category 5.4.1: This data records each activation of the level crossing system by a passing train. It contains information such as the date and time the train entered the physical boundaries of the system, the train's speed at various points while within the physical boundaries of the system, and, importantly for this analysis, the actual duration the warning system operated before the railway equipment reached the level crossing surface (actual warning duration);

For category 5.4.2: This data helps to understand which specific trains used the level crossings and their traffic behavior, complementing the log data;

For category 5.4.3: This information collects train-specific data, such as its physical characteristics and train symbol, as well as the date and time it crossed the crossing;

For category 5.4.4: This data is essential for understanding level crossing capabilities and data retention rules, which will also facilitate the analysis of potential data issues. Location plans are essentially detailed plans for each level crossing, which also include information on the design of the level crossing equipment, including the minimum warning time and the warning buffer time configured by CN.

According to VIA Rail, the geographic scope of this claim is relevant to the dispute because:

CN alleges that the Venture trains manufactured by Siemens and used by VIA Rail have an inadequate shunting problem, resulting in short warning times at CN level crossings on the Corridor. (CN's defense will be presented below.)

CN relies on several "tests" allegedly conducted on its infrastructure, the general conclusions of which are reported in the National Loss of Shunt Committee's White Paper, to justify the imposition of restrictions on VIA Rail's Venture trains. CN further emphasizes its experience with shunt loss events in the United States to justify the imposition of restrictions on VIA Rail's Venture trains. Specifically, CN states the following in paragraphs 20, 24, and 32 of its defense and in the letter from Patrick Whitehead (CN's Chief Network Operating Officer) to Mario Péloquin (VIA's President and CEO) dated November 5, 2024:

"CN has an extensive history with the study of shunt loss over the last decade. You have suggested that the US experience bears no relevance to VIA’s operations. We disagree. VIA’s equipment presents similar characteristics to Amtrak’s equipment and is now experiencing the same issues. Ignoring the US experience would be irresponsible. CN shared with VIA the findings from the Committee as well as the minimum 32-axle requirement standard it has on the U.S. portion of its network."

Through its pre-commitment request, VIA Rail is requesting CN's data on short announcement times on its U.S. network to assess the relevance and reliability of this data for the purposes of the restrictions imposed on VIA Rail and to determine whether CN has adopted a consistent approach for all trains with fewer than 24 axles operating on its infrastructure.

VIA Rail adds the following:

Request 5.4 covers a territory representing 9.1% of CN's network. Specifically, 1,715.3 miles out of the 18,800 miles of CN's rail network (representing 9.1%), according to data provided by CN in the Third Quarter 2025 Review, Canadian National, page 4;

Request 5.4 is non-duplicate of VIA's other pre-commitment requests, as it is the only pre-commitment request aimed at disclosing raw data that has not already been analyzed according to parameters selected or influenced by the CN;

The data in Request 5.4 are strictly necessary to:

• validate (or invalidate) the alleged justification for differential treatment of VIA Rail's Venture trains, specifically in comparison to: Other passenger trains not subject to Crossing Supplements (e.g., passenger trains in the United States or older VIA Rail trains, many of which operate with 16, 20, or 24 axles); CN's own trains (many of which can operate with as few as 4 or 8 axles);
• validate the positive, negative, or neutral effect of the different versions of the Crossing Supplements on the impact of short warning times over time;
• validate (or invalidate) the possibility that causes other than Venture trains could be responsible for the impact of short announcement times on the CN network, in particular to conduct a root cause analysis and identify possible ways to remedy deficiencies related to: CN infrastructure (for example, faulty configuration, lack of maintenance, or insufficient buffer times at certain level crossings); Train operations; Weather conditions, etc.;

In its argument plan, VIA explains in great detail other technical considerations for which it needs the raw data prior to October 11, 2024.

The Court reiterates that the burden of demonstrating the importance of the information sought rests with the party seeking that information, in this case, VIA. For the reasons set out below, the Court cannot accept VIA’s arguments reproduced in the preceding paragraph and concludes that VIA has not demonstrated relevance.

The Court notes that VIA argues that the data referred to in Request 5.4 is highly relevant because it will allow it to determine whether the data on which CN relied to issue the Crossing Supplement is reliable. However, with due respect, the Tribunal finds that this cannot be the case for the following reason.

According to the evidence, in most cases, the data would only cover the last few months, as Mr. Kaye explains in paragraphs 12 to 14 of his affidavit and orally during his testimony. Therefore, this data cannot in any way form the basis for the restrictions adopted by CN on October 11, 2024. Furthermore, since the data will only cover the last few months, it will only cover a period when restrictions were already in place, both in Canada and the United States. Consequently, the data sought by VIA could never demonstrate the state of affairs before the imposition of the Crossing Supplements, and thus becomes entirely useless. The Tribunal therefore concludes that request 5.4 is not relevant.

The Court therefore does not have to decide on the parties’ other arguments, namely the geographic scope of the data in question.[5]

The Court further notes that it appears VIA has already received the data on which CN relied to justify the issuance of the Crossing Supplements. CN's defense mentions this, and the Court notes that VIA has already obtained the following:

• VIA has obtained all tests and analyses conducted by the LOS Committee since its formation in 2014, as well as all presentations of the results, draft LOS Committee White Papers, and numerous emails from LOS Committee members. This enormous body of data and other information includes approximately 739 files containing the results of tests conducted by the LOS Committee on the Venture trains used in Illinois. Other data on which CN relies has been submitted as evidence by both parties in this litigation. VIA already has what it needs to determine whether the data justifying the issuance of the Crossing Supplement is "reliable."

• VIA also already has in hand, either as a result of the disclosure of documents in this proceeding or under proceedings filed before the Federal Court, a large amount of what it calls "SWT data". As an example, CN produced in response to VIA's pre-commitment request 5.3 data relating to 735 short warning times ("activation failures" according to regulations in the United States) notified by CN to the Federal Railroad Administration since January 1, 2020. This data makes it possible to identify the date of the incidents, their exact locations, and their cause;

• More significantly, VIA Rail has already received the information gathered by Transport Canada during the Federal Court proceedings and has submitted it as evidence in support of its originating application, along with CN’s analysis of this data. The information gathered by Transport Canada and provided to VIA Rail comprises approximately 431 data folders and 1,300 files, a large number of which are zip files containing many other data files. Furthermore, since this data was provided to Transport Canada in January 2025, it covers the period both before and after the implementation of the Crossing Supplement.

The question of whether this data differs from the raw data VIA is seeking is an excellent one, but it can never be answered. Indeed, as explained previously, the evidence demonstrates that the search CN could conduct would only cover a few months prior, well after the imposition of the Crossing Supplements. The data would have had to go back to a period before October 11, 2024, to be relevant.

In short, the Court concludes that VIA has not demonstrated the relevance of request 5.4. Simply put, the information sought by VIA is irrelevant since it concerns data that will only cover a period within the application interval of the Crossing Supplement, sometime in 2025 or 2026. Even if VIA obtains all the data it seeks, the Court fails to see how this information could allow it to demonstrate that the adoption of the Crossing Supplement in the fall of 2024 was not justified.

The dispute will have to be decided based on the data collected by the CN and already transmitted to VIA. However, VIA may raise arguments regarding its various obligations to preserve evidence.

The Court concludes that VIA has not demonstrated the relevance of its request 5.4.

The Court nevertheless considers the issue of the scope of the task under 2.2.2 The scope of the task: [and whether it is] Excessive[/disproportionate]?

2.2.2 The Scope of the Task

VIA’s ARGUMENT REGARDING SCOPE OF THE TASK

• The data requested by VIA for Request 5.4 is precise, does not require searching for a needle in a haystack, and can be obtained through reasonable efforts involving a limited number of CN team members. Therefore, the request is not excessive given the scope of the dispute.

• CN’s estimated timeframe of 47 weeks to respond to Request 5.4 is misleading: it assumes that a single, fictitious CN employee would perform each of the level crossing checks sequentially. As demonstrated by CN’s data collection on the Corridor, mobilizing a team of employees working concurrently allowed them to collect and analyze all the level crossing predictor data on the corridor in just over two months. Experience with this matter to date demonstrates that the information sought by pre-commitment requests 5.4 can be obtained within a reasonable timeframe.

• As the Superior Court recently reiterated in the decision AtkinsRéalis Canada Inc. v. ArcelorMittal Mining Canada[6], proportionality must be assessed in light of the importance of the issues in dispute and the complexity of the facts. When the requested documents are relevant, even if the number of documents required to respond to a given request may be significant, the particular context of a case does not justify deeming the request disproportionate when the nature, scope, and complexity of the dispute warrant it. This is the case here, given the magnitude of the dispute and the potentially drastic consequences for VIA Rail.

• The imposition of the Crossing Supplements by CN—and, consequently, this present dispute—raises issues of national importance for all Canadians, which far exceed the purely private interests of the parties and require reasonable efforts to be made to collect the data that will allow the Court to validate, among other things, whether the Crossing Supplements were justified, or not.

• In concrete terms, the Crossing Supplements have the effect of a new form of rail regulation, all without the ministerial approvals required by the Rail Safety Act, because they require VIA Rail to undertake costly steps to bring its Venture train fleet into compliance with CN's demands without any scientific justification from CN. VIA Rail will have to pay hundreds of millions of dollars.

• During his examination on December 2, 2025, Mr. Kaye testified that the data collection effort required to obtain the information needed to meet requirement 5.4 would require a team of 14 CN employees working full-time for a month, stating that it would be realistic to provide a response within 60 days.

• Mr. Kaye also acknowledged that such an effort would be comparable to the efforts undertaken by CN in response to VIA Rail's other pre-commitment requests, which required CN to ask more than two dozen employees (many of whom were working full-time on that effort) to collect the relevant documents over approximately two and a half months. The data collection work that would be required to meet Request 5.4 is less and comparable to such an effort. It is not a disproportionate effort.

• Mr. Kaye also admitted during his questioning that CN had deployed approximately 100 maintenance workers and a dozen managers to respond to Transport Canada's data requests within the first 30 days following Transport Canada's Ministerial Order of December 10, 2024. Subsequently, Mr. Kaye supervised a team of 14 or 15 employees for a period of four or five months, until June 2025, to respond to Transport Canada's follow-up and analysis requests. The data collection work required to meet Request 5.4 is far less than such an effort. This is not a disproportionate effort.

• The large number of CN employees (approximately 1,350 maintainers and 25,000 employees in total) and CN's financial capacity (generating annual profits of approximately $6 billion) are not entirely irrelevant in the proportionality analysis, contrary to CN's claims (see Exhibit EK-1, pages 12 and 15);

• Contrary to CN's assertion, the established legal principle that a court cannot order witnesses to perform analytical work or force them to prepare a document that does not exist does not apply in this case. Indeed, this pre-admission request only concerns the extraction of data already in CN's possession. In today's technological age, documents often take the form of data. Extracting such data is therefore unavoidable in order to comply with a pre-commitment request. While this extraction involves some work and time, it does not entail creating a document or producing an analysis, but simply performing a normal technical operation inherent to the prior disclosure of evidence.

• No one disputes that the factual basis of the dispute is remarkably complex. It naturally follows that the evidence required to establish the truth is voluminous and its collection requires significant effort from the parties. To justify its refusal of request 5.4, CN had to demonstrate that it was not only onerous, but so onerous as to constitute abusive or vexatious conduct on the part of VIA. However, this is far from being the case;

• The pre-commitment request 5.4 is therefore proportionate in light of the nature of the present dispute, its complexity, and its purpose. The information sought is necessary and justified by the issues in dispute and the complexity of the facts alleged to date.

CN's ARGUMENT REGARDING SCOPE OF THE TASK

CN disputes and argues the following:

• CN submitted Mr. Eliott Kaye's affidavit in support of its claim that collecting and organizing the requested information would entail unreasonable effort. However, VIA Rail did not challenge Mr. Kaye's evidence regarding the time and effort required to fulfill VIA Rail's request. Therefore, the fact that it would take the equivalent of 47 work weeks, or 14 people working full-time for one month, to fulfill VIA Rail's request is neither disputed nor was challenged during Mr. Kaye's questioning.

• This task represents an extraordinary level of effort, particularly in light of the voluminous data already provided to VIA Rail by CN in previous Federal Court proceedings, as well as in the interlocutory injunction proceedings and now on the merits in Superior Court.

• Mr. Kaye’s testimony at the hearing on December 2, 2025, demonstrated that the resources CN would need to deploy to fulfill VIA Rail’s request must be increased. Mr. Kaye estimated that, to fulfill the first of the four categories of documents requested by VIA Rail (i.e., “crossing logs”), no fewer than 330 maintainers would be required to retrieve the information from the 1,861 predictors across the 33 subdivisions in the United States and Canada covered by VIA Rail’s request. This far exceeds what is reasonable in this context.

• Furthermore, during Mr. Kaye’s questioning, VIA Rail’s lawyers attempted to compare the efforts that would be required by CN to comply with Request 5.4 to those undertaken by CN to comply with Ministerial Order 24-01 issued by Transport Canada on December 10, 2024.

• Ministerial Order 24-01 was an extraordinary request from Transport Canada made under the Railway Safety Act.[7] Mr. Hoang Tran, CN’s former Senior Director of Regulatory and Systems Safety, explained it this way: “It was the first time in the 29 years that I have been working in the rail industry in Canada that I have seen a Ministerial Order issued under Section 36 of the Railway Safety Act.” Mr. Tran was questioned by VIA Rail about his affidavit of April 1, 2024, and his characterization of Ministerial Order 24-01 was neither questioned nor challenged.

• There is a fundamental difference between (i) a request issued by a regulator under the Rail Safety Act and (ii) a request from VIA Rail as part of pre-commitments. Furthermore, the scope of the two requests is substantially different. 

-->Specifically:Ministerial Order 24-01 concerned only 304 level crossings on the corridor, while VIA Rail's request concerns 1,861 level crossings located in Canada and the United States. VIA Rail's request therefore concerns six times more level crossings than Ministerial Order 24-01.

-->Only two of the four elements of VIA Rail's request overlap with those of Ministerial Order 24-01. Mr. Kaye explained during his testimony that VIA's request seeks even more data than what was requested by Transport Canada in Ministerial Order 24-01, referring to "WIM data and the O/S data" (i.e., sections 5.4.2 and 5.4.3 of VIA's request). 

• In the context of the pre-commitment requests, CN did not object to the disclosure of relevant evidence and, in fact, complied with almost all of VIA Rail's requests for documents. In response to these requests, CN provided VIA Rail with an impressive amount of documentation. In addition to the documents provided by CN, VIA Rail also had access to all the documents CN transmitted to Transport Canada pursuant to Ministerial Order 24-01 of December 10, 2024.

The Court notes that the two parties do not interpret the evidence in the same way.

The Court also notes that case law is contradictory regarding the parties' obligation to conduct extensive research when the scope of the dispute is enormous. On the one hand, the following decisions reject the notion that the scope of the dispute equates to an obligation for the parties to conduct extremely extensive research: [three cases cited].

On the other hand, there are the following decisions which require the parties to conduct very extensive research when the scale of the dispute demands it: [six cases cited].

The Court does not need to decide the matter, since the data that CN's research could obtain in response to Request 5.4 would never be relevant, as described above.

2.2.3 Conclusion

The Court will therefore uphold CN's objection to the disclosure of documents and information to VIA in response to the pre-commitment request in 5.4.

Since CN has prevailed, the Court will award it legal costs.

FOR THESE REASONS, THE COURT:

UPHOLDS the objection of the defendant, Canadian National Railway Company, to the disclosure of documents and information in response to the plaintiff's request for pre-commitments 5.4;

ALL with court costs awarded to the defendant, Canadian National Railway Company.

__________________________

DONALD BISSON J.C.S.

Bogdan Catanu, Jean-Christophe Martel, Laurent Crépeau

Omar El Baba, Daniel Martz, Alexandre Gélinas

Jennifer Price, Claudette van Zyl, Alexandre Gélinas

Woods LLP

-Counsels for the Plaintiff VIA Rail Canada Inc.

Vincent Rochette, Maya Angenot, Heather Clark, Florence Méthot

Norton Rose Fulbright Canada LLP

-Counsels for the Defendant Canadian National Railway Company

Hearing Dates: December 1 and 2, 2025

Date of Deliberation: December 8, 2025 (date of receipt of final written submissions and authorities)

[Selected non-case law References]

[1] CN, which was itself formerly a federal Crown corporation, was privatized in 1995: CN Marketing Act, S.C. 1995, c. 24.

[2] See section 103.1(f) of the Canada Rail Operating Regulations made under section 19 of the Railway Safety Act, RSC 1985, c. 32 (4th Supp).

[3] The hearing was scheduled for December 1 and 2, 2025, and was intended to cover all evidence and arguments on all objections, but the task was too extensive to fit within the allotted time.

[5] This provides the Court with the opportunity to decide whether certain documents cited by VIA in its plan of argument are admissible in evidence for the purposes of this case.

Running extra...

VIA decided to add an F40 to certain Venture sets with problematic HEP systems this week. When a Redditor digressed into other Venture challenges like loss-of-shunt, and asked whether I'd ever actually seen a Corridor train, I responded I'd seen one or two. Despite my avatar, I have a Reddit 'handle' that's pretty anonymous. Then this happened:

Barry Gettman has upgraded his 'traincar' website that uses VIA's reservation information to list all VIA trains' car types on a given day. Super-useful for those of us tracking Ventures! Barry recently added a daily dashboard page that graphically shows the gradual Venture takeover of the Corridor.

Jeremy Andrews has produced a completely different website using VIA's Application Programming Interface (API) to show arrivals/departures for a selected station. Jeremy notes that a few years ago he'd created a website to show a similar arrivals/departures board until VIA changed their API and the site stopped working. This is a new attempt.

The VIA Historical Association produced two editions of their magazine Panorama this year. You can read this update and try to find and define the word 'cromulent'!

First past the post...

Having watched Charles for his whole life, the multitudes of experiences within him made his story fuller and eminently engaging. The cupola was foreboding, but also forbidden, yet he entered and viewed life from it. There was busking, there was basking. Thanks Chuck!