By Pepper Parr
October 19th, 2024
BURLINGTON, ON
The kids can make a difference – better than that – the kids are making a difference.
In a landmark case, Ontario’s top court has ruled that an appeal from seven young Ontarians suing the provincial government over its new greenhouse gas emissions targets can proceed.
The Court of Appeal declined to rule on the case’s substance which means extending a legal battle in Canada’s courts over their role in overseeing government climate action.
In a decision released Thursday, three judges sided with the appellants in Mathur v. Ontario that a Superior Court of Justice judge “erred” in deciding the young people’s case was a “positive rights case” in an April 2023 decision.
Seven young people with their lawyers – suing the government over its new greenhouse gas emissions targets.
Gets a little technical – the Judges said: “This is not a positive rights case. The application does not seek to impose on Ontario any new positive obligations to combat climate change”. In legal studies and political theory, positive rights refers to rights that give people something, such as a right to have an education or a right to housing.
The judges fell short of determining the merits of the case’s arguments, writing the appeals court was “not well placed” to make such a ruling. Instead, they called for a new hearing, which could be overseen by the original judge or a different one.
Thursday’s ruling gave the seven young appellants — lead applicant Sophia Mathur, Madison Dyck, Shelby Gagnon, Beze Gray, Zoë Keary-Matzner, Alex Neufeldt and Shaelyn Wabegijig — a small victory in their lawsuit against the provincial government that was first filed in 2019.
At issue — which lawyers for the seven young people argued before the Court of Appeal earlier this year — was Ontario’s weakened 2030 emissions targets passed by Premier Doug Ford’s then-newly elected Progressive Conservative government in 2018 that reduced goals from 37 per cent lower emissions below 2005 levels to 30 per cent. According to the appellants claim, this reduction violates the charter rights of current youth and future generations, specifically sections 7 and 15 that provide the right to life, liberty and security of the person and equal protection under the law respectively.
Steel mills operating in the waterfront harbour in Hamilton, Ont. Canada has had a national price on pollution since 2019 – known as the Carbon tax.
Mathur v. Ontario is the first case of its kind to be tried in Canada, and Thursday’s ruling could shape decisions in other cases facing courts in Canada and internationally asking judiciaries to more actively oversee government climate plans.
In a similar case, La Rose v. Her Majesty the Queen, is awaiting a trial date at the federal level in Canada as 15 young people sue the Canadian government on similar grounds as the seven young people in Mathur v. Ontario.
The future belongs to the young people – what a delight to see them taking the lead. There is hope yet.
Much of the material in this article first appeared in the Toronto Star
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