Ottawa woman celebrates court victory for youth on climate change

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Ottawa’s Alexandra Neufeldt was 23 years old when she decided to join an unusual bid to win provincial action on climate change.

Neufeldt put herself forward five years ago as one of seven young plaintiffs in a lawsuit against the provincial government, alleging its greenhouse gas emissions policy violated the constitutional rights of Ontario’s youth.

They said the government’s decision to claw back emissions targets in 2018 violated the Charter’s guarantee of their rights to equality, life and security of the person.

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“We don’t have any environmental rights explicitly laid out in the Charter, but we think our Charter rights should guarantee us a right to a healthy and stable climate,” said Neufeldt, now 28 and a freelance fashion designer. “And the court system has the potential to make that happen.”

In mid-October, in what environmental activists hail as a landmark ruling, Ontario’s highest court said the lawsuit brought by the seven young plaintiffs could proceed.

The Court of Appeal for Ontario overturned a lower court ruling, which dismissed the lawsuit as a “positive rights case” — a case that establishes a novel legal right — and said a new hearing must determine whether the government’s actions on greenhouse gas emissions comply with the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

A three-justice panel said there are “relevant, important issues” that need to be examined. The appeal court said it cannot rule on those issues, and ordered a new hearing to fully explore them.

“I was very pleased to hear that,” Neufeldt said in an interview. “I think our case deserves to be heard on its merits, and I think it represents a positive evolution of the law.”

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The lawsuit was triggered by the Progressive Conservative government’s decision in 2018 to cut back greenhouse gas emissions targets in Ontario. Premier Doug Ford’s government reduced the province’s emission goals from 37 to 30 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030.

Lawyer Frasier Thomson of Ecojustice, an environmental law charity that forms part of the legal team in the case, called the appeal court decision a landmark ruling in the fight against climate change.

“This decision makes it clear that government action on climate change is subject to Charter scrutiny,” he said. “It’s the first time Ontario’s highest court has ruled that how governments respond to the climate crisis must comply with the high standards of the Charter.”

In its ruling, the appeal court panel said the lower court judge correctly concluded that “it is indisputable that, as a result of climate change, the appellants and Ontarians in general are experiencing an increased risk of death and an increased risk to the security of the person.”

The province did not contest the existence of climate change, its risks to human health or the need for all countries to take action to mitigate its adverse effects.

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In court, the Ontario government argued that its actions will have little or no effect on climate change given the scope of the problem, and that the environmental impacts described by the young plaintiffs are not the result of the province’s greenhouse gas policies.

The case is now expected to return to the Ontario Superior Court of Justice for a new hearing where Ontario’s climate record will be scrutinized.

“Ontario will have to answer to its record as a climate laggard,” charged Thompson.

Neufeldt said the case is important because the potentially catastrophic impact of climate change will be borne by those who are young today or as yet unborn.

“When the worst impacts of climate change happen — if we don’t get a handle on it — it’s the people who are young now who will be paying the price,” she said. “We’re thinking into the future. We’re thinking, ‘What is my life going to be like?’”

The lawsuit contends that the impact of climate change offends the Charter’s equality provision because it will have a disproportionate impact on youth, particularly Indigenous youth, given the toll that wildfires and drought take on traditional hunting and fishing grounds.

The legal case, known as Mathur et al., represents the first Charter-based climate case to reach a full hearing in Canada, and is part of a growing number of climate litigation cases around the world.

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