The fight over Toronto's Ontario Place waterfront reached the Supreme Court of Canada on Thursday, October 15, with a hearing in the Ontario Place Protectors case challenging the province's redevelopment law.
The case stems from Ontario's Rebuilding Ontario Place Act, 2023, brought in to facilitate redeveloping the formerly public waterfront park as a private spa. The Act exempts the project from several existing statutes, including environmental assessment and heritage legislation, and removes the City of Toronto's authority over noise at the site.
The intervener list is unusually broad, spanning coalitions led by Ontario Place for All, civil liberties groups, environmental organizations, First Nations from several provinces, the City of Toronto and the Advocates' Society, among others.
Opposing them are the attorneys general of Ontario, British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Quebec, Yukon and Canada — a lineup that underlines how the court's answer on provincial legislative power could matter well beyond one Toronto park.
