One must commend the diligence of the Supreme Court of Canada in handing down a decision 2 days before Christmas, though it does increase the chances it will be missed! I see now that in Canada (Attorney General) v. TeleZone Inc., 2010 SCC 62 (23 Dec 2010) http://scc.lexum.umontreal.ca/en/2010/2010scc62/2010scc62.html the Court over-turned a previous Federal Court decision restricting the circumstances in which a private law action for damages can be brought against a Federal Government authority. 

Telezone are suing in the Provincial Superior Court for damages in breach of contract, negligence and unjust enrichment based on their losses flowing from a Government decision not to grant them a license to operate in the telecommunications area. Whatever the merits of their substantive claim (and to be frank they don't look great), they were stymied initially on the basis of the previous decision in Canada v. Grenier, 2005 FCA 348, [2006] 2 F.C.R. 287 holding that no private law action challenging the validity of a Federal Government decision is valid unless it is brought in a very restricted time period (about 30 days!) and under specific provisions allowing judical review of Government action. Sensibly the SCC  here says that the decision in Grenier was wrong, and that a private law action is not governed by the specific judicial review provisions. They note that the effect of the successful action here would not be to invalidate the previous decision, simply to allow an award of damages on the basis that the company's private law rights had been breached. An interesting example of the intersections between private and public law.

Regards

Neil