Canada’s Climate Action | The Supreme Court refuses to hear young people

The Supreme Court of Canada refuses to hear the organization Environnement Jeunesse, which wanted to bring a class action against the Canadian government, which it accuses of not doing enough to curb the climate crisis.

Jean-Thomas Léveillé
The Press

The request for leave to appeal “is dismissed with costs,” the highest court in the country said on its website on Thursday, thus ending a battle that lasted nearly four years.

Environnement Jeunesse (ENJEU) asked the Superior Court of Quebec in November 2018 for permission to institute a class action on behalf of all Quebecers aged 35 and under, “the generation that is likely to be most affected by the changes climatic conditions”, affirmed its director general at the time, Catherine Gauthier.

The request was rejected the following year, a decision upheld by the Quebec Court of Appeal in 2021 and which ENJEU wanted to have overturned by the Supreme Court.

“By refusing to hear this case, the Supreme Court of Canada is leaving important questions unanswered, including whether or not Canada is violating the rights of young people to safety, equality and a healthy environment. “, responded STAKE, in a press release.

The organization points out that the decision would have made it possible to clarify “the context of contradictory judgments on the question of the justiciability of climate remedies in Canada”.

Catherine Gauthier, who is now special adviser for ENJEU, nevertheless believes that the organization’s legal approach “will have been a tremendous tool for raising awareness and educating the public on the right to a healthy environment, on the protection of the , respect for biodiversity and the fight against climate change”.

The office of the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada, David Lametti, has said that it is up to the Minister of Environment and Climate Change, Steven Guilbeault, to react to the Supreme Court’s decision; the latter had not yet done so at the time of this writing.