2 total
The defendants were acquitted of environmental offences for bird strikes because they established a due diligence defence.
A private prosecution brought by an environmental advocacy group against the owners and managers of a commercial office complex for regulatory offences related to bird deaths caused by collisions with the building's reflective glass.
The prosecution charged the defendants under three statutes: the Ontario Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, the Environmental Protection Act, and the federal Species at Risk Act.
The court found that the defendants committed the actus reus of two offences (EPA and SARA) but acquitted them on all charges after finding they exercised due diligence in addressing the bird strike problem.
The court dismissed a mid-trial application for third-party records in a private prosecution, finding Charter protections inapplicable to private actors and the relevance claims speculative.
Defendants in a private prosecution for regulatory offences arising from bird collisions with their buildings brought a mid-trial application for production of internal records from FLAP (Fatal Light Awareness Program), a non-profit environmental advocacy organization that had monitored bird strikes at the defendants' property for over a decade.
The defendants sought FLAP's records regarding its cooperation with Ecojustice, the environmental advocacy group prosecuting the case, arguing the documents were relevant to claims of unreasonable search and seizure, abuse of process, and witness credibility and reliability.
The court dismissed the application, finding that the defendants could not advance Charter claims against private actors, that their abuse of process claim lacked an air of reality, and that their credibility and reliability arguments were speculative and unsupported by evidence.
