Only 5 dinners left. And on Tuesday, January 25, 2022 the City filed its application for leave to appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) on a narrow ruling and decision by the Ontario Court of Appeal (ONCA) in late November 2021.
Only 5 Cozy Date-night Dinners remain!
Buy your tickets today!
That’s right! You must act now to get your tickets for our Aperitivo dinner for 2 at your place on Monday, February 7.
Help us sell this event out TODAY.
The City Seeks Leave to Appeal the Ontario Court of Appeal (ONCA) decision relevant to the 40PA to the Supreme Court of Canada (SCC)
On Tuesday, January 25, 2022 the City filed its application for leave to appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) on a narrow ruling and decision by the Ontario Court of Appeal (ONCA) in late November 2021.
The Coalition was very pleased with this decision by the City and trust you will be relieved to see it as well. We also want to inform you that our legal expert Alyssa Tomkins of Caza Saikaley and co-counsel Charles Daoust, newly associated with David Sauve LLP, consulted on the development of the final application and they too “are very pleased with the results!”. The Coalition appreciated the opportunity to have worked collaboratively with the City’s team to ensure completion of this key plank in the defence of the 40PA.
You can read the City’s Memorandum of Argument of the Applicant as filed here. As mentioned in a previous e-News, there is no certainty that the SCC will decide to hear this application. In fact, recent numbers suggest only 7-8% of all leave to appeal applications filed are ultimately heard at the Court. The application must persuade the SCC that the central issue under appeal is of broad public interest if not national interest. We feel it does. The City is not arguing the validity of the 40PA itself, but rather, an error in the ONCA decision that allowed its narrow interpretations of the 40PA clauses 5(4) and 9, in good part due to a confusing history of contradictory case law decisions on contract conveyance from both the ONCA and SCC. Our KGPC legal minds believe that this application could intrigue the SCC and provide the opportunity for it to reconsider the law broadly and our situation specifically. If granted, finding a hearing date in the SCC calendar is expected to take significantly longer, probably well into 2023.
Update: The return of the 40PA to an Ottawa Courtroom
As we noted in a December e-News, the ONCA decision directed the City and ClubLink to return to the court of Justice Labrosse to hear any remaining disagreements pertaining to the 40PA. ClubLink wrote to Justice Labrosse this week requesting a case conference on the very matter. You can see from its letter, ClubLink is continuing its previous strategy and efforts to see the Coalition excluded from the legal discussion of the 40PA. We take it as a compliment! If there was any doubt in your mind that the Coalition is having an impact on this case, we hope you take some good comfort in ClubLink’s behaviour. They know there will be finality to their development plans with a solid legal decision. We have great confidence in our legal team
Update: The OLT Hearing is postponed for 2 days
The hearing was postponed yesterday until Monday, January 31 at 10am when ClubLink will begin direct examination of its last witness Peter Smith. This represents a shortening of the original Hearing Plan document by 2.5 days which we take as good news. We hear the frustrations building in the community about the one-sided nature of the hearing. Rest assured, next week when the City begins presentation of its experts and evidence followed by the KGPC, it should seem much less so. We will see how it all turns out over the coming weeks.
That’s our update for today. We expect we will have more news next week and will reach out to you then. In the meantime, we hope you are able to enjoy some of the loosening Covid restrictions around the corner. All the same, stay safe and well!
And, we hope you catch those last tickets to our Cozy Date-night Dinner before they’re
gone! We do need your support to keep our fight alive.
We’re better together!
Barbara
Barbara Ramsay
Chair, Kanata Greenspace Protection Coalition
T – 613-725-6595
E – chair@ourkanatagreenspace.ca