Montcalm Construction Case

(1979) Montcalm Construction Inc v Minimum Wage Commission et al was concerned with whether or not provincial labour laws applied to the employees of a construction company that had a contract with the federal government to build the landing strips at Mirabel Airport on land belonging to the Crown in right of Canada. The Supreme Court of Canada decided that while aeronautics fell within federal jurisdiction, the salaries paid by an independent business are so far removed from aerial navigation and use of an airport that the power to regulate the matter could not form an integral part of the primary jurisdiction of Parliament over aeronautics or be tied to the development of a federal operation. The court also ruled that federal lands are not extraterritorial enclaves within provincial boundaries and that valid and generally relevant provincial laws apply to them.