Matthew Adam Brownlee Horner

Following preliminary motions in an application for judicial review concerning a wind energy project, both the applicant and the intervenor sought costs.

The applicant sought full indemnity costs for a motion for party status and a motion for protective costs.

The intervenor sought partial indemnity costs, arguing the motions were unnecessary.

The court found that the applicant was successful on the first motion, while the intervenor was successful on the second.

Noting the excessive costs claimed and inadequate cost outlines, the court concluded that the entitlements offset each other and made no order as to costs.

The applicant brought motions for declarations of justiciability and public interest standing, a protective costs order, and an order for further records in its application for judicial review of approvals for a wind energy project.

The Ontario Energy Board (OEB) moved to quash the application as it related to its decision.

The court dismissed the applicant's motions, finding the standing and justiciability issues premature without a full evidentiary record, and denying the protective costs order and records request.

The court granted the OEB's motion to quash, finding the environmental and social issues raised by the applicant were outside the OEB's jurisdiction.

The plaintiffs sought leave to amend their Statement of Claim to add new parties and assert additional causes of action, including nuisance, negligence, and various Charter and international covenant claims.

The defendants opposed the amendments and brought motions to strike.

The court denied leave to add new Ministries/Ministers, dismissed claims based on international covenants as not actionable in domestic law, and rejected most Charter claims (specifically s. 7) on the basis of issue estoppel, as these issues had been previously determined by the Environmental Review Tribunal and upheld by the Divisional Court.

However, the court permitted amendments for nuisance and negligence claims against the K2 defendants, acknowledging that the alleged harms were now realized post-construction.

The action against Her Majesty the Queen in Right of Ontario and the Director was dismissed.

Two moving parties, wpd White Pines and Ron Higgins, sought party or intervener status in an application for judicial review challenging the approval of a wind energy project.

The court found that wpd White Pines, the project proponent, was not a necessary party under Rule 5.03 but granted it intervener status under Rule 13.01 without the conditions requested by the applicant.

The court dismissed the motion by Ron Higgins, finding he did not meet the criteria for intervention and his participation would unduly delay the proceedings.

The applicant filed a human rights application alleging age discrimination with respect to services against the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care and the Premier of Ontario.

The organizational respondent brought a request for an order during proceedings to remove the Premier as a personal respondent.

Applying the Persaud framework, the Tribunal found no compelling reason to name the Premier or the former Minister of Health as personal respondents, as there were no allegations of their direct involvement in discriminatory conduct.

The request to remove the Premier was granted, and the applicant's request to add the former Minister was denied.

The applicant sought an interim remedy to be immediately enrolled in the Ontario Health Insurance Plan (OHIP) pending the resolution of his human rights application alleging discrimination based on citizenship, gender identity, family, and marital status.

The Tribunal denied the request, finding that the applicant did not meet the significant onus required for an extraordinary interim remedy that would suspend the operation of the Health Insurance Act prior to a finding of discrimination.

The Tribunal noted that the applicant had purchased private insurance and was not disentitled from obtaining health care, meaning the balance of harm did not favour granting the remedy.

The proposed interveners, two unions, brought motions for leave to intervene in an application for judicial review concerning the payment of post-retirement benefits by a school board.

The judicial review was scheduled to be heard immediately after a related Stated Case in which both proposed interveners were already participating.

The court dismissed one union's motion to intervene, finding it could efficiently make its arguments in the Stated Case proceeding without prolonging the judicial review.

However, the court added the other union as a responding party because it was a joint signatory to the collective agreement at issue in the underlying arbitration.

The appellant, a manager at a provincial jail, filed a human rights complaint after the respondent union president posted sexist comments about her on a union blog during a labour dispute.

The Human Rights Tribunal dismissed the complaint, finding the conduct did not constitute discrimination 'with respect to employment' under s. 5(1) of the Human Rights Code, after balancing the Code's objectives with the respondent's Charter rights to freedom of expression and association.

The Divisional Court upheld the decision on judicial review.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, confirming that administrative tribunals must consider Charter values when interpreting their home statutes, even absent ambiguity, and that the Tribunal's balancing of these rights was reasonable.

Following the dismissal of their appeals from decisions of the Environmental Review Tribunal regarding wind farm approvals, the appellant landowners argued they should not pay costs because the litigation was in the public interest.

The Divisional Court held that while the appeals were not public interest litigation that would merit no costs, they did contain a strong public interest component regarding the constitutionality of the legislative regime.

Taking this into account, along with the lack of particularity in the respondents' bills of costs and the lower scale of costs typically awarded on appeals to the Divisional Court, the court awarded reduced partial indemnity costs to the successful respondents totaling $67,000.

The appellants, residents living near three proposed wind turbine farms, appealed decisions of the Environmental Review Tribunal (ERT) that confirmed the Director's issuance of Renewable Energy Approvals (REAs) for the projects.

The appellants argued that the statutory test requiring them to prove the projects would cause 'serious harm to human health' violated section 7 of the Charter.

The Divisional Court dismissed the appeals, finding that the statutory test aligned with the jurisprudential threshold for section 7 claims and did not depart from the consensus scientific view on wind turbines.

The Court also upheld the ERT's treatment of lay witness evidence, its finding that it lacked jurisdiction to review the Director's REA issuance process for Charter compliance, and its discretionary decisions denying adjournments.

The applicant challenged the constitutionality of a regulation under the Highway Traffic Act that requires drivers 80 years of age and older to undergo biennial testing to renew their driver's licences.

The applicant argued this requirement discriminated on the basis of age contrary to s. 15 of the Charter.

The Divisional Court dismissed the application, finding that the testing program is individualized, sensitive to the potential problems of aging, and not based on arbitrary or demeaning stereotypes.

The court concluded the regulation does not violate s. 15 of the Charter.

The appellant, who sustained a severe traumatic brain injury, appealed a decision of the Health Services Appeal and Review Board denying her request for pre-approved funding for in-patient rehabilitative services at an Alberta facility.

The facility was not licensed as a hospital and did not accept public funding.

The appellant argued the denial breached her rights under sections 7 and 15 of the Charter.

The Divisional Court dismissed the appeal, finding that section 7 does not impose a positive obligation on the government to fund out-of-province medical treatments, and that the denial was based on the facility's licensing status, not the appellant's disability, thus not engaging section 15.

The applicants brought a motion seeking leave to file seven reply affidavits in an application for judicial review concerning a decision to allow increased sulphur production at a Suncor refinery.

The respondents objected to the vast majority of the proposed reply evidence on grounds including improper case-splitting, irrelevance, and that the evidence was available earlier.

The court held that a less strict standard for reply evidence applies on an application prior to cross-examinations than at trial.

Applying this standard, the court permitted most of the reply evidence, striking only portions that were purely confirmatory, raised new issues that should have been in the main case, or repeated earlier evidence verbatim.

The applicants filed human rights applications alleging discrimination based on sex regarding the limited scope of OHIP coverage for in vitro fertilization.

They requested that their applications be deferred pending the determination of two other applications that challenge the same regulation and are further advanced in the Tribunal's process.

The respondent consented to the deferral.

The Tribunal granted the request, finding that deferral would minimize costs, reduce uncertainty, and make the best use of Tribunal resources.

The Municipality of North Middlesex appealed two decisions of the Environmental Review Tribunal regarding a Renewable Energy Approval under the Environmental Protection Act.

The Tribunal had struck the Municipality's Notice of Constitutional Question and refused to grant it public interest standing.

The Divisional Court dismissed the appeal, finding that the Tribunal correctly applied the law, did not err in principle, and provided compelling reasons.

The applicants, who required in-vitro fertilization (IVF) and preimplantation genetic diagnosis due to disabilities, filed human rights applications alleging discrimination after OHIP denied coverage for their treatments.

The respondent requested that the applications be dismissed for delay, as the last IVF treatments occurred more than a year before the applications were filed.

The applicants argued that a recent visit to their doctor, who confirmed the ongoing lack of coverage, constituted a fresh incident of discrimination.

The Tribunal held that the doctor's visit was not a fresh step by the respondent and did not constitute a new incident of discrimination.

As the applicants provided no good faith reason for the delay, the applications were dismissed.

The applicant, who has multiple sclerosis, filed a human rights application alleging discrimination after the respondent denied OHIP funding for a CCSVI angioplasty procedure.

The respondent had refused funding on the basis that the treatment was experimental, a decision upheld by the Health Services Appeal and Review Board (HSARB).

The respondent requested the Tribunal dismiss the application under s. 45.1 of the Human Rights Code.

The Tribunal found that the HSARB had appropriately dealt with the issue of whether the treatment was experimental.

Furthermore, the Tribunal concluded the application had no reasonable prospect of success, as the applicant could not show she was treated differently from any other person seeking funding for an experimental treatment.

The applicant, an 84-year-old driver, sought to challenge the requirement under O. Reg. 340/94 that drivers over 80 pass an examination every two years, alleging age discrimination.

Section 19 of the regulation, enacted pursuant to s. 47(2) of the Human Rights Code, explicitly exempts these licensing requirements from the Code.

The applicant argued this exemption violated his equality rights under s. 15(1) of the Charter.

The Tribunal held it lacked jurisdiction to consider the constitutionality of the licensing requirement as a stand-alone issue.

Furthermore, the Tribunal found that the statutory exemption itself did not violate s. 15(1) of the Charter, as it did not perpetuate disadvantage but merely required such challenges to be brought before the courts under the Charter rather than the Tribunal under the Code.

The application was dismissed for lack of jurisdiction.

The applicant, a retired teacher, alleged that the survivor benefit provisions of the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan discriminated on the basis of sex and marital status.

The respondents sought early dismissal on the basis that the application was filed outside the one-year limitation period under section 34 of the Human Rights Code.

The Tribunal found that the alleged discrimination did not constitute a series of incidents, but rather a single incident with continuing effects that occurred either upon the applicant's retirement or his subsequent remarriage.

As the application was filed more than a year after these events and the applicant failed to establish a good faith reason for the delay, the application was dismissed as untimely.

The respondent requested to dismiss the human rights application for delay.

The applicant alleged discrimination regarding access to a medical procedure in 2004-2005 and again in 2012.

The Tribunal found the 2004-2005 allegations were out of time and the applicant failed to provide a good faith explanation for the delay.

However, the 2012 allegations were timely.

The Tribunal dismissed the 2004-2005 allegations but allowed the 2012 allegations to proceed.