Municipality Can’t Bring Charter Challenge To Wind Approval Rules

The Environmental Review Tribunal has quashed an attempt by a municipality to bring a Charter challenge to Ontario's wind energy approval rules. Undoubtedly, however, the same Charter challenge will be brought soon by one or more individuals.

In  Municipality of North Middlesex v. Director, Ministry of the Environment, North Middlesex served a Notice of Constitutional Question shortly before the hearing of its appeal against the K2 wind farm. North Middlesex seeks to have struck down, as unconstitutional, the parts of the Environmental Protection Act that govern renewable energy approvals (for wind farms). They argue that the legal test in the Act, requiring opponents to prove the likelihood of harm to human health, breaches the s. 7 Charter rights of their residents: