Articles 2023

Mattar v. The National Dental Examining Board of Canada, 2020 ONSC 403 (Div Ct) is a decision of the Divisional Court, released only a couple of months after the Supreme Court of Canada’s decision in Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration) v Vavilov, 2019 SCC 65. As one of the early decisions to consider the new doctrine of responsive justification, Mattar is one example of how Vavilov may motivate reviewing courts to require better quality administrative tribunal reasons.

In the decision of Intercounty Tennis Association v. Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario, 2020 ONSC 1632, the Divisional Court held that applying the revised rules of judicial review established by the Supreme Court of Canada in Canada v. Vavilov, 2019 SCC 65 meant that patent unreasonableness in the Ontario Human Rights Code was akin to reasonableness, and dismissed an application for judicial review concluding that the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario’s finding of discrimination was reasonable.

In this article, Rachel Weiner summarizes the revised framework in Vavilov, identifies changes and uncertainties regarding the standard of review, and argues that the reasonableness standard is not significantly altered.

In Weld v Ottawa Public Library, 2019 ONSC 5358, the Ontario Divisional Court (the “Court”) found that a decision by a Public Library to terminate a room rental agreement was not subject to judicial review as it was not made in a public capacity.

Victims of crime in Ontario will now get significantly less compensation and will no longer have their cases heard before an impartial adjudicator after Bill 100 amends the Compensation for Victims of Crime Act and dissolves the Criminal Injuries Compensation Board.

Within his first few months in office, Ontario’s new Premier, Doug Ford, has prompted a carefully worded but vehement defence of the rule of law in Tesla v Ontario (Ministry of Transportation), 2018 ONSC 5062. Justice Myers reviewed the discretionary exclusion of Tesla from the transitional program for car subsidies, determining it was unrelated to any statutory purpose and did not afford any procedural fairness. Justice Myers quashed the decision and remitted it back to the Minister.

In Delta Airlines Inc v Lukács, the Supreme Court addresses two important issues. First, in a counter-intuitive way, it addresses when a reviewing court may supplement reasons, following concerns raised by administrative lawyers after the seminal case of Edmonton East. Second, it reaffirms that tribunals and courts should provide access to justice by maintaining an open door to public interest litigants with genuine complaints.

Commenting on Girouard v Canada (AG), 2018 FC 865, the author argues this case is an example of a trend towards more administrative decision-makers that have unlimited powers. This trend has profound implications for the Rule of Law, as it places such decision-makers alongside the Constitution as beyond reproach. But the administrative state is not a constitutional mandate. The Canadian Judicial Council is vested with powers by its enabling statute. It does not have inherent power.

The Supreme Court of Canada has recently granted leave to appeal from the decisions in Bell Canada v. Canada/ National Football League v. Canada, 2017 FCA 249 and Vavilov v. Canada, 2017 FCA 132 and, in so doing, advised that it will hear these three appeals together in order to reconsider the nature and scope of judicial review of administrative decision-makers addressed in Dunsmuir and subsequent cases and has specifically directed the parties to address the question of standard of review.

In Denton v. British Columbia (Workers’ Compensation Appeal Tribunal), 2017 BCCA 403, the British Columbia Court of Appeal ("Court of Appeal") has confirmed that generally speaking, constitutional issues should not be raised for the first time on judicial review as they should be first considered in the context of a developed record.