Articles

This Nova Scotia class proceeding sought redress for the impacts of the pollution claimed to have been emitted from the Sydney Steel Works since 1967. While the decision of the Court of Appeal relied heavily on class proceedings precedent, it demonstrates the difficulty plaintiffs will have in overcoming the lack of common issues in many circumstances that may otherwise look desirable for an environmental class action.

The Court of Queen's Bench recently struck out significant portions of a negligence claim against Alberta's energy regulator, EnCana. The Court ruled EnCana did not owe her private duty of care, and cannot be held liable in negligence.

In a recent decision, the Supreme Court of Canada clarified section 15(1) of the Environmental Protection Act, where it is required that the MOE be notified forthwith when a contaminant that causes or is likely to cause an adverse effect is discharged into the environment.

A recent decision reinforces that courts are willing to order security for costs against environmental groups challenging development through judicial review.

The Abitibi decision and the recent decision in Nortel reveal the need for Parliament to clarify the statutory scheme to deal with historical environmental contamination in the insolvency context.

Ontario Environmental Review Tribunal accepted Minutes of Settlement in Baker v. MOE, resolving the clean-up order issued against former directors and officers of Northstar Aerospace Inc.

Ontario has announced it will stop burning coal to generate electricity by the end of 2014 and will close the massive Nanticoke Generation Station by the end of the year.

A brief overview of the steps building owners should take if there is the potential that their buildings may contain asbestos.

Officers or directors of corporations that have ever owned, occupied or managed contaminated real estate have absolute environmental liability, whether or not the contamination occurred during their tenure, and regardless of fault.

The Environmental Bill of Rights, 1993 should be well known to environmental lawyers in Ontario. This one-of-a-kind piece of legislation creates several tools to ensure government accountability in environmentally significant decision-making.