LE CODE CIVIL DU QUEBEC ET LA LOI SUR LA PROTECTION DU CONSOMMATEUR : UN MARIAGE DE SOLITUDES

Abstract

In the same way as the codifiers decided (in our opinion, a regrettable decision) to exclude lesion as between persons of full age as a basis for judicial review not to compromise the stability of contracts, they appear to have refused to include too many consumer-specific rules out of that same concern. The resurgence of economic liberalism that characterized the 90s might be a factor. A number of arguments support this premise: a definition of consumer contract that differs from the one in the Consumer Protection Act (C.P.A.), the limited application of rules that are specific to consumer contracts, the refusal to align the C.P.A. with the C.C.Q. when the Act respecting the implementation of the reform of the Civil Code was adopted, changes made to the Civil Code peripherally to the C.P.A. and, lastly, changes made to the C.P.A. independently of the Civil Code. The essence of all these arguments is the same: the marriage between the jus commune and consumer protection is one of convenience, a meeting of two solitudes that never manage to really marry.