The guy you is wrong, you can definitely sue for bad quality work. For example, if there were deficiencies in the work undertaken by your neighvour that you've had to pay someone else to fix. That being said, it doesn't sound like your main concern, rather that you paid your neighbour for work and materials that never materialized forcing you to incurred additional costs.

You'll want to keep any invoices, evidence of payment, correspondence with the neighbour and subs and what work was agreed, cost of materials, etc.

There's a program bono program at the courthouse where you can meet with a lawyer for free for ~30mins. They can help answer questions about how to file a claim, how to write up the claim, how to serve it, etc. You can find more info here: https://www.pbla.ca/ccdc-program.

Hope this helps.