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Articles in this Issue • Region Loses First Round in Court Case • Expressway to be NAFTA Highway • Council Threatens to Start Construction • Region's Debt Rating Drops • City Charged Over Leaking Valley Landfill • Panel Guidelines Strengthened by Public Input • Region's Court Costs Climbing

December 1999 Newsletter Region Loses First Round in Court Case The regional government has lost decisively in the first round of its court challenge against the federal environmental assessment. A decision was handed down on Friday, December 10 by Mr. Roger R. Lafreniere, Prothonotary, regarding arguments made before him on November 10 by lawyers for the Region, the Federal government and Friends of Red Hill Valley (we supported the federal government's position). The following grounds for the court challenge have been disallowed: that the Fisheries Minister and the Environment Minister erred in law or exceeded jurisdiction in deciding the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act (CEAA) applied to the expressway; that the Fisheries Minister lacked lawful basis to ask the Environment Minister to refer the expressway to a Panel Review that the Fisheries Minister improperly considered matters extraneous to CEAA in requesting the Environment Minister to refer the project to a Panel Review that the Fisheries Minister acted unlawfully in failing to give the Region more opportunity for submissions as to mitigation that the Environment Minister improperly considered extraneous matters in ordering the review that the Environment Minister acted unfairly in ordering the Review that practice elsewhere differed from the practice in this case that the Environment Minister had no justification to consider Environment Canada to be a "responsible authority" under CEAA for the Expressway and acted on strong opinions of federal officials that the Expressway was unneeded. The federal government's lawyers initiated the motion in November to limit the Region's court challenge. The court agreed with the federal motion, and went so far as to award costs of $1500 to the federal government. The court ruled that this money must be paid by the Region regardless of the outcome of the overall court challenge. It is expected the Region will appeal the decision.   © Friends of Red Hill Valley 1991-2005