Successful non-suits of environmental prosecutions are rare. A
non-suit is granted only when the Crown has failed to offer any
evidence, no matter how manifestly unreliable, of the essential
elements of the offences charged.
I was therefore particularly pleased to achieve three non-suits
on October 18. Judge Mackey of the Ottawa Court of Justice
dismissed three charges against a family-owned waste management
company, the president and general manager. All three charges
stemmed from Ministry of the Environment inspections of the Lacombe
Waste transfer site, and involved unwarranted allegations of
mishandling of hazardous waste. The ministry officer insisted, for
example, that certain wastes were stored in improper locations,
even though they were exactly where the certificate of approval
directed them to be. In a second count, the officer demanded that a
used container be treated as hazardous waste, despite the specific
rule in regulation 347 that a container with less
