Several environmental groups including the David Suzuki Foundation challenged the Fisheries Department in Federal Court over its management of the Nooksack dace, a small minnow that only lives in four freshwater streams near Vancouver.
They argued a 2006 policy decision not to include the location of those streams in the recovery strategy for the obscure fish violated the Species At Risk Act.
Justice Douglas Campbell agreed, and in a strongly worded decision released late last week chided the fisheries minister for "a reluctance to be held accountable" for policies that contradict the law.
"It's probably one of the most important environmental decisions we've seen from Canada's courts," says Stewart Elgie, who teaches environmental law at the University of Ottawa.
"This decision really slaps the government's hands for its ongoing failure to identify and protect endangered species habitat. It will have implications for dozens of other species across Canada."
I wonder is the BC provincial government's reluctance to fund proper tracking of salmon could ever fall under this logic. It's a different issue as the salmon aren't classified a species at risk -- not yet, anyway -- but if there's any obligation under any law, the trap may have been laid.
Why all this over a minnow? It's a food web issue. Often the larger the animal, the less important it is. Anyway, the principal is what's important here. This ruling can be used to preserve many more species under neglect. And, believe me, there are many.
The purpose of the courts is to give us recourse when laws are not being enforced. Someone somewhere might scream "activist judge" at this ruling, but the judge is simply saying that the law is not being carried out and that it is required to be.
The alternative is the violation of the rule of law, which is what we all live under. The alternative is rule by arbitrary fiat.
And, of course, this is federal law, and we know how much those characters like to be arbitrary.
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