Articles

On November 27, 2015, the Ontario Court of Appeal released a ground-breaking contaminated sites decision in Midwest v. Thordarson, 2015 ONCA 819. The authors provide three case comments that focus on the Court’s expansion of the scope of recoverable damages in contaminated sites cases, the statutory right of action found in s. 99(2) of the EPA, and personal liability for environmental contamination.

Laura Zizzo, a trained lawyer and strategic advisor focusing on climate risk management at Zizzo Strategy Inc., reports on the Untied Nations Climate Summit.

The authors briefly review the recognition of good faith performance obligations and the recent Bhasin v. Hrynew decision and go on to discuss the applications for this duty in litigation and environmental law contexts.

Sarah provides an overview of three of the many interesting topics covered by the Environmental Commissioner of Ontario ("ECO") in her Annual Report for 2014/2015, which was released on November 3, 2015.

Disappointed purchaser of a contaminated plaza loses multimillion dollar claim against the vendors and his own lawyer.

Within the next 5 years, a live GHG cap and trade system will be a reality in Ontario.

The Court of Appeal has recently discussed the drafting of expert reports and the nature of expert testimony (Westerhof v Gee, 2015 ONCA 206 (CanLII)).

A recent nuisance case, Steadman v. Lambton County is the latest chapter in the story of nuisance as an environmental tort.

Paper originally presented for Ontario Bar Association Annual Institute “Managing New Environmental Quagmires – Perspectives from the Litigation, Regulatory and Transactional Context” - February 4, 2015

Since 2009, new wind farms being developed in Ontario require a renewable energy approval ("REA"). REAs are issued by Ontario's Ministry of the Environment and Climate Change ("MOECC"). The issuance of a REA by the MOECC gives rise to a statutory appeal right pursuant to section 142.1 of the Environmental Protection Act, R.S.O. 1990, c.E.19 ("EPA").