UPDATE 09/12/2018: Hours after we filed the lawsuit, the Ministry of Environment, Conservation and Parks posted a notice on the Environmental Registry of Ontario providing for a 30-day public consultation period for Bill 4, Cap and Trade Cancellation Act, 2018.
We’re suing the Ford government for breaking the law when it cancelled Ontario’s cap and trade program.
The Ford government’s first order of business when it stepped into office was to illegally tear down Ontario’s legislative regime for combating climate change, without offering an alternative solution of its own.
But in its haste to dismantle the province’s climate legislation and gut a program designed to reduce greenhouse gas pollution, the Ford government has so far failed to fulfill its responsibilities under the Environmental Bill of Rights (EBR). The EBR is signature environmental legislation unique to the province of Ontario. It requires government to consult the public on changes to environmental regulations and laws so that residents, community groups, businesses and other stakeholders have an opportunity to weigh in on decisions that affect them.
The Ecojustice team, including the Ecojustice Environmental Law Clinic at the University of Ottawa, has partnered with Greenpeace Canada to bring the Premier to heel. We’re suing to remind the Premier that winning an election does not give his government carte blanche to ignore the legal rights of Ontarians to be consulted on changes to laws that protect them from climate change.
Ecojustice has a long history of standing up for your right to know about, participate in, and challenge environmental decision-making in Ontario. We are also no stranger to fighting back against decisions that are bad news for the climate — see our role in using the law to defend the environment and local communities in the face of the Trans Mountain pipeline project and the Energy East pipeline.
And now, we will not let the Ford government’s attempts to shirk responsibility for climate action and ignore the rights of Ontarians go unchallenged.
Help make sure we are able to stand up and protect our communities and the environment from the devastating impacts of climate change.
Photo of Doug Ford addressing crowd of supporters in Sudbury, Ont., via Flickr under Creative Commons
