Environment or economy?
The Conference Board of Canada predicts that investments in technology to prevent and adapt to climate change will have major economic benefits. The report, The Economic and Employment Impacts of Climate-Related Technology Investments concludes that climate-friendly technology investments can contribute to both economic and employment growth over the next five years. This supports the economic argument for initiatives...
Continue reading the post titled Environment or economy?GHG reductions: are we getting better?
The federal government has quietly admitted that its greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) reduction efforts are having little effect. The Harper Conservatives won’t comply with the action plan portion of the Kyoto Protocol Implementation Act, 2007 , but they do file the reports to Parliament that the KPIA requires. As a result, they have been forced...
Continue reading the post titled GHG reductions: are we getting better?Northstar Inc. and the Ministry of the Environment: Are Directors and Officers Responsible for Environmental Remediation?
How much responsibility do Directors and Officers bear for environmental contamination? The answer is not clear from the text of the Environmental Protection Act and currently the Ontario Courts are considering the issue in Baker v Ministry of the Environment. In this blog post, Paula Lombardi looks at the history of this developing issue.It is...
Continue reading the post titled Northstar Inc. and the Ministry of the Environment: Are Directors and Officers Responsible for Environmental Remediation?Ontario Failing Our Future on Climate Change
In his latest report, Ontario’s Environmental Commissioner again strongly criticizes the Ontario government for doing too little on climate change. The Ontario government has done a lot, most notably closing coal-fired power plants and adopting the Green Energy Act. In this, Ontario compares well to other provinces and to our foot-dragging federal government. However, Commissioner...
Continue reading the post titled Ontario Failing Our Future on Climate ChangeTermination clause update: The unclear impact of Andros v. Colliers Macaulay Nicolls Inc., 2019 ONCA 679
I have previously discussed the enforceability of termination clauses in former blog posts, available here and here. In short, a long history of inconsistent and amorphous case law has created significant uncertainty among lawyers attempting to advise their clients about whether a given termination clause is enforceable or unenforceable. A Court of Appeal decision released...
Continue reading the post titled Termination clause update: The unclear impact of Andros v. Colliers Macaulay Nicolls Inc., 2019 ONCA 67912 years later – have things changed?
Approximately 12 years ago the Nobel Peace Prize was equally shared between the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and Al Gore “for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change.” In 2007 the message...
Continue reading the post titled 12 years later – have things changed?Are COVID-19 unemployment payments deductible from wrongful dismissal damages?
When the COVID-19 pandemic led to widespread layoffs in Q2 2020, the Canadian government introduced the unprecedented Canada Emergency Recovery Benefit (or “CERB”). CERB was retired in September 2020 and was replaced with (among other things) the EI Emergency Response Benefit (“EI ERB”) and the Canada Recovery Benefit (“CRB”) for those not entitled to the...
Continue reading the post titled Are COVID-19 unemployment payments deductible from wrongful dismissal damages?Conspiracy theory: Is price-matching illegal?
Federal Court decision sheds light on the difference between unlawful conspiracies and “conscious parallelism”. You pull up to a major intersection. There’s a gas station on every corner. You notice one of the stations is raising the price on its sign by a few cents higher than its competitors. Later, you drive past the same...
Continue reading the post titled Conspiracy theory: Is price-matching illegal?Downloading liability on municipalities
Senior governments seem to have no shame about downloading enormous, undisclosed environmental liabilities on municipalities. In an English case, Corby Group Litigation v. Corby District Council, the Corby Borough Council (CBC) has been held liable for allowing residents to become exposed to toxic substances during its 1980s cleanup of an old British Steel works. British...
Continue reading the post titled Downloading liability on municipalitiesWhy is fairness irrelevant?
Innocent parties forced to pay unfair environmental costs should seek compensation in the civil courts, and should not expect any help from the ERT.
Continue reading the post titled Why is fairness irrelevant?Receive Blog Posts
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