|
Judicial Review - SOR - No Reasons Given. Lovell v. Ontario (Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry)
In Lovell v. Ontario (Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry) (Div Court, 2022) the Divisional Court, in a judicial review, considered the absense of reasons for the issuance of a work MNRF permit, not as an aspect of SOR reasonableness but as an administrative 'fairness' issue (here the court considers it as a Baker issue):1. The nature of the decision being made and the process followed in making it
[79] This was a building permit application. It was not heard by an adjudicative body. No formal reasons were required. While the Applicants fault MNRF for the failure to provide reasons for granting a permit application, such reasons were not necessary in the circumstances. The issue of whether reasons should have been granted speaks to both reasonableness and procedural fairness. In Vavilov, at para. 77, the majority of the Supreme Court stated:
It is well established that, as a matter of procedural fairness, reasons are not required for all administrative decisions. The duty of procedural fairness in administrative law is "eminently variable", inherently flexible and context-specific…
[80] Further, and to repeat, at para. 136 of Vavilov, where the Applicants cited Lafontaine, the majority of the Supreme Court of Canada stated:In many cases, however, neither the duty of procedural fairness nor the statutory scheme will require that formal reasons be given at all...
|
