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Standing - Judicial Review (JR). Centurion Building Corporation v. The Shaw Festival
In Centurion Building Corporation v. The Shaw Festival (Ont Div Ct, 2026) the Ontario Divisional Court dismissed a JR, this where "planning applications were granted and a demolition permit was issued" regarding the old Royal George building in Niagara-on-the-Lake.
The court considered private standing, here in this JR context:[22] To bring an application for judicial review, a party must have either private interest or public interest standing: Kilian v. College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario, 2022 ONSC 5931 (Div. Ct.), at para. 41; Des Roches v. Wasauksing First Nation, 2026 ONSC 6578 (Div. Ct.), 17 Admin. L.R. (6th) 142, at para. 11.
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(iii) Private Interest Standing
(a) The Test
[29] The concept of private interest standing was explained in Imperial Oil Ltd. v. Haseeb, 2023 ONCA 364, 483 D.L.R. (4th) 228, at paras. 92-93:The test applied by the courts for private interest standing requires that the applicant or plaintiff have a personal and direct interest in the issue raised in the proceeding. The interest must not be too indirect, remote, or speculative. Various formulations of this requirement are used in the jurisprudence, including that the person is “specifically affected by the issue”, has a “personal legal interest”, or has a “personal and direct interest” in the outcome of the proceeding. This type of standing is often referred to as “direct interest” or “private” standing to distinguish it from public interest standing (the latter having different requirements): Canada (Minister of Finance) v. Finlay, 1986 CanLII 6 (SCC), [1986] 2 S.C.R. 607, at pp. 617-18; Bedford v. Canada, 2010 ONSC 4264, 102 O.R. (3d) 321, at paras. 44-47, aff’d on this point, 2012 ONCA 186, 109 O.R. (3d) 1, at para. 50, rev’d in part on other grounds, 2013 SCC 72, [2013] 3 S.C.R. 1101; Carroll v. Toronto-Dominion Bank, 2021 ONCA 38, 153 O.R. (3d) 385, at para. 33; Thomas A. Cromwell, Locus Standi: A Commentary on the Law of Standing in Canada (Toronto: Carswell, 1986), at p. 5.
The ultimate concern behind rules for private standing (as distinct from public interest standing) is that the party bringing the proceeding have a real legal interest in the proceeding that they are seeking to vindicate, rather than just a “sense of grievance”: Carroll, at para. 33; Landau v. Ontario (Attorney General), 2013 ONSC 6152, at paras. 16 and 21; Cromwell, at pp. 9-10. Ultimately, a party must demonstrate prejudice or interference with a personal or private legal interest that is causally related to the decision under review: 2701836 Ontario Inc. v. Haldimand (County), 2026 ONSC 805 (Div. Ct.), at para. 13; Ye v. Toronto District School Board, 2023 ONSC 2918 (Div. Ct.), at para. 21; Des Roches, at para. 13.
[30] The applicant asserts private interest standing based on the fact that it pays municipal taxes to the Town, which it ties to its submission that the Town wrongly failed to require “cash-in-lieu of parking” from Shaw which, according to the applicant, would have amounted to approximately $7,500,000 in revenue for the Town. The applicant also relies on the fact that it operates a building business throughout the Niagara Region, including within the Town, that deals with heritage properties.
(b) The Applicant’s Payment of Taxes
[31] In my view, the applicant has failed to show how any of its private legal interests are affected by the Town decisions at issue in this case. The fact that the applicant pays taxes and that the decisions have financial ramifications for the Town is not the type of direct interest upon which private interest standing is based. As noted in Landau v. Ontario (Attorney General), 2013 ONSC 6152 (Div. Ct.), 293 C.R.R. (2d) 257, at para. 16, “[b]eing a citizen, resident, taxpayer, does not give someone private interest standing to challenge government action….”
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