Montreal, December 10, 2020 – The Supreme Court of Canada today denied a real estate developer’s application to appeal the May 2020 Federal Court of Appeal’s decision, which upheld the emergency order to protect the chorus frog in La Prairie, issued under the Species at Risk Act.

“The decision is a momentous victory for the protection of Canadian biodiversity” declared a delighted Alain Branchaud, Managing Director of the Société pour la nature et les parcs (SNAP Québec). “Protecting the habitats of endangered species is not only legal, constitutional and necessary, their destruction is now considered a crime that must be admonished across the country”, he further said.

For Frédéric Paquin Esq., the lawyer who pleaded the case and led the emergency order in La Prairie back in 2016: “The Supreme Court’s refusal fully endorses a brilliant decision by the Federal Court of Appeal. The courts are clearly confirming the authority and duty of the Federal and Provincial Governments to take action now, in order to stop the mass extinction of wildlife species we are seeing today.”

Several fundamental principles that guided the judgments in first instance are now engraved in case-law and will guide the interpretation of laws aimed at protecting biodiversity. These principles include the fact that protection on private land does not constitute concealed expropriation, that governments must take scientific advice into account, and that the protection of biodiversity has become a fundamental societal value.

This ruling sends a strong message to provincial governments across Canada. Provincial laws protecting biodiversity and their implementation will have to be adapted. A major reflection must therefore begin in Quebec, in order to modernize protection measures for threatened and vulnerable species. First, the Quebec Government must review its Regulation Respecting Wildlife Habitats with the purpose of better protecting the habitats of threatened and vulnerable wildlife species on lands other than government lands. This necessary reflection must also extend to municipal authorities, several of which are already integrating biodiversity protection into their development plans.

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Our previous actions on this issue: 

• 21 May 2020: Protéger la rainette faux-grillon : légal, moral et constitutionnel !
• 9 July 2018: Ni anticonstitutionnelle, ni expropriation déguisée – Jugement historique sur la protection des espèces en péril
• 22 June 2016: La protection des espèces en péril fait son entrée dans le 21e siècle

INFORMATION

Charlène Daubenfeld
Head of Communications
SNAP Québec
Cell: 514-378-3880
[email protected]