The Supreme Court of Canada has rejected a motion by the country’s most powerful energy regulator that Jessica Ernst’s case involving fracking and groundwater contamination raises no significant constitutional claim and should be dismissed.
Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin ruled that the case raised a significant constitutional question on whether or not an “immunity clause” in the regulator’s legislation placed it above the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Is the regulator’s immunity clause, asked McLachlin in her June 25th ruling “constitutionally inapplicable or inoperable to the extent that it bars a claim against the regulator for a breach of” the Charter of Rights and Freedoms?
But Glenn Solomon, counsel for the Alberta Energy Regulator, argued in submissions to the court that “no constitutional question should be stated in the present matter.”