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March 2005
Newsletter
Hamilton Sues Canada - $75 million lawsuit against federal environmental staff
Statement of Friends of Red Hill Valley
December 5, 2004
In an unprecedented assault on Canadian
environmental law, the Hamilton munic ipal
government is accusing 65 federal
government staff of “deliberately and
unlawfully” using their public office to
harm the city by participating in an environmental
assessment of a controversial
city expressway. The city is suing the
civil servants and four former federal
cabinet ministers for $75 million, charging
the public servants illegally used the
Canadian Environmental Assessment Act
(CEAA) in 1999 to stop or delay the Red
Hill Creek Expressway.
The lawsuit says “the defendants abused
their public office by engaging in targeted
malice towards the City’s completion of
the Expressway” and utilized environmental
assessment “in an unprecedented,
illegal and unconstitutional manner in
order to achieve that objective.”
The formal statement of claim filed in
court by David Estrin of Gowling Lafleur
Henderson also says “the defendants
knew, when they determined to use their
public office to stop the City completing
the Expressway, that the City would be
harmed in the result”.
The extraordinary accusations threaten to
impose a chill on the enforcement of environmental
assessment and other environmental
laws across the country. The
federal employees work for Environment
Canada and the Department of Fisheries
and Oceans and include members of the
Professional Institute of Public Servants
of Canada and the Public Service Alliance
of Canada.
Federal government rules prevent the targetted
employees from speaking out in
their own defence. None of the four ministers
named in the lawsuit are still in the
cabinet. David Anderson, Sheila Copps,
Herb Dhaliwal and Christine Stewart
were part of the Chretien government but
were not invited into Paul Martin’s cabinet.
The expressway project was subject to a
federal environmental assessment because
it includes a seven kilometre relocation of
Hamilton’s second largest creek. The assessment
began in 1998 and was bumped
up to a full panel review in May 1999
when it became apparent that the expressway
would cause “significant adverse environmental
impacts that could not be
mitigated”.
The city hired Estrin to fight the assessment
and spent $3.5 million to obtain a
Federal Court decision that the assessment
was not required. Hamilton has subsequently
paid Estrin’s firm an additional
$1 million to secure other expressway
approvals and fight massive citizen opposition
to the project.
The city was awarded court costs of half a
million dollars, but has now decided it
wants much more. Its council voted 8-7
on November 24 to launch the lawsuit,
and at the same time approved, by the
same margin, plans to sue individual citizen
opponents of the expressway. The
road itself is well under construction.
Over 90% of the project is located inside
Hamilton’s largest park and natural area.
Friends of Red Hill Valley calls on all
Canadians to oppose this lawsuit which
clearly threatens the enforcement of environmental
law across the country. The
claims in the lawsuit are false and its accusations
against federal staff are grossly
inaccurate and unfair. The city openly
admits that its aim is to achieve an out-ofcourt
settlement which would transfer
tens of millions of dollars from the federal
government to municipal coffers.
Paul Martin’s vendetta against Copps and
other Chretien ministers suggests this
may happen. The fact that Estrin’s law
firm was among the top 5% of contributors
to Martin’s leadership campaign may
also be a factor in the federal response to
the lawsuit. Such a crass political decision
would cut the legs out from under federal
civil servants and send the clear message
to them to back off from the enforcement
of Canadian environmental laws.
All Canadians should oppose such a cowardly
decision and demand that the Martin
government vigorously fight the Hamilton
lawsuit.
For more information, including a PDF of
the text of the lawsuit, please contact
Friends of Red Hill Valley at
redhill@hwcn.org or by phone at (905)
381-0240.
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