THUNDER BAY — A group of young activists, including two locals, who have taken the Ontario government to court over its emissions reduction targets scored a big win in Canada’s top court.
In a decision handed down on Thursday, the Supreme Court of Canada dismissed the province’s appeal of an Ontario Court of Appeal’s decision that revived the case, after the Ontario Superior Court initially dismissed it in 2023. That dismissal, however, also included findings that accepted expert evidence on the destructive impact of climate change on Ontario and Canada.
Shelby Gagnon and Madison Dyck are the two local young people of the group of seven who initially launched the lawsuit against Ontario in 2019.
“It took a little bit for it to set in of what it actually meant, but it was very exciting once it sunk in and I had the time to also process it,” Gagnon, who is from Aroland First Nation, said about the Supreme Court decision in an interview with Newswatch on Friday.
“I'm so excited and the other applicants are super excited.”
Their suit argues the Ontario Progressive Conservative government breached Sections 7 and 15 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms when, in 2018, it repealed the previous provincial Liberal government’s cap-and-trade system for addressing climate change, replacing it with weaker targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 2030.
Section 7 of the Charter is the right to life, liberty and security of the person, while Section 15 is the right to equality before and under the law.
The plaintiffs’ case survived multiple attempts by the government to have it thrown out, according to a press release by Ecojustice, who is one of the organizations representing the group, before the suit was initially heard by the Ontario Superior Court of Justice in 2022.
After that court dismissed it, they successfully appealed the decision, which the province subsequently — and unsuccessfully — tried to have overturned by the Supreme Court, who also ordered the Ontario Superior Court to hold a new hearing.
“It's about time, and I think the anticipation is just kind of leading up to what the courts will actually give us in a final hearing for this case,” Gagnon said, adding she expects the case to be heard in the fall.
Ecojustice said this has been the first climate Charter case “to be heard and decided on its merits.”
Gagnon said the case is especially important today, given geopolitical changes in the world, as well as further evidence of climate change-related issues and disasters like extreme wildfires, changes to winter weather patterns, distribution of animals, and other alterations she said she’s noticed while working as a hide tanner and speaking with elders and people from other parts of the world.
“So much has been happening on a global level, on an individual level and even thinking about our communities,” she said. “I think a lot about the foods and what's happening with just the … political realm of the state of the world.”
“So really thinking about food, seeing how the land has even changed within the last six years, and how thinking about the future too, of how much it will change,” Gagnon continued. “Hopefully this case brings … stricter laws and policies within a governmental level.”
Gagnon said the case has also caused her to reflect on her own efforts to be more sustainable and that the it was “put together with youth in mind, and with younger generations in mind, that we really could fight this fight,” she said.
“We have the power to do whatever we can to help heal the land and ourselves.”
