The Ontario Environmental Review Tribunal has dismissed an appeal from an individual ordered
to clean up the historic contaminated site of a bankrupt
company in Brighton, Ontario.
Bruce Cooey’s father owned Cooey Metal Products
Ltd., which owned and operated an factory in Brighton,
Ontario, between 1941 and 1989. The site was contaminated, the
company became insolvent and the site was abandoned. The
family’s lawyer, Simon Morris Rosenfeld, sat on the
board from 1982 until the company was dissolved in 1994. Mr. Cooey
ended up as the registered owner of the land, but without the money
to clean it up.
In 2000, the Ontario Ministry of the Environment tried to force
Bruce Cooey to clean up the site. After an exhaustive review of his
(lack of) finances, they abandoned the effort as futile. By 2009,
the site had still not been cleaned up, and the MOE issued a new
clean up order. This time the order was addressed to Bruce
Cooey and to the lawyer, Simon Rosenfeld, who had
