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On November 12th, 2020, the Ontario Superior Court of Justice rejected the Ontario government’s motion to dismiss a climate action lawsuit brought on behalf of several young climate activists. Ranging in age from 12 to 24, the plaintiffs reside in municipalities across Ontario and are represented by Canadian environmental law charity Ecojustice. The case is Mathur v. Ontario, 2020 ONSC 6918. 

The lawsuit alleges Ontario’s provincial government, under the leadership of Progressive Conservative Premier Doug Ford, violated the s. 7 (life, liberty and security of the person) and s. 15 (equal protection) Charter rights of the plaintiffs and future generations when it cancelled Ontario’s cap and trade program and adopted a new, less-ambitious climate plan as compared with the previous government’s. The youth plaintiffs allege the provincial government’s actions increase the likelihood they and future generations will suffer numerous harms associated with climate change, including intensified and more frequent extreme heat events, fires, floods, infectious diseases and algal blooms.

The Ontario Superior Court of Justice’s ruling comes on the heels of a similar youth climate action lawsuit’s dismissal at the same stage in litigation. La Rose et al. v. Her Majesty the Queen was dismissed on October 27th by a federal court in Vancouver. La Rose’s plaintiffs argued the federal government’s failure to take sufficient action addressing climate change, and continuation of various federal policies aiding large greenhouse gas emitters, amounted to a violation of the plaintiffs’ s. 7 and s. 15 Charter rights.

(I previously wrote about the La Rose case here)

Distinguishing her decision in Mathur from the La Rose decision, Justice Carole J. Brown noted that the La Rose plaintiffs challenged the federal government’s broad climate-facing policy as constituting a Charter violation. As a result, the federal court found the “undue breadth and diffuse nature of the Impugned Conduct” too broad to fit within the court’s jurisdiction. By contrast, Mathur’s plaintiffs challenged two specific provincial government actions. 

“The [youth plaintiffs] submit that the questions raised...are well within this Court’s institutional capacity,” wrote Justice Brown. “The questions all concern the alleged pressing threat to constitutional rights posed by Ontario’s failure to act in order to protect its population from climate change, which are precisely the type of issue [sic] that engages this Court’s obligation to interpret and apply the Charter.”