Several environmental groups took the federal ministers of oceans and fisheries and the environment to Federal Court seeking a declaration that they must act to protect endangered species. Madame Justice Anne McTavish granted them the declaration they sought. She noted that the Species at Risk Act requires the ministers to publish a proposed recovery strategy, followed by a final recovery strategy shortly thereafter when a species is identified as endangered or threatened. She concluded: “…it is necessary and appropriate to grant the applicants the declaratory relief they are seeking, both as an expression of judicial disapproval of the current situation and to encourage future compliance with the statute by the competent ministers. The Court therefore declares that the Ministers acted unlawfully in failing, within the statutory time-frames, to post proposed recovery strategies for the species at issue in this case.”
Western Canada Wilderness Committee v. Canada (Fisheries and Oceans) 2014 FC 148
About Teresa Mitchell
