Polluter-pay:
Imperial Oil Ltd. v. Québec (Minister of the Environment)
Date:
December 1 2003
On 30 October 2003, the Supreme Court of Canada upheld the “polluter-pay” principle in the important decision Imperial Oil Ltd. v. Québec (Minister of the Environment). The Court found that Imperial Oil Ltd. (“Imperial”) must comply with a “characterization order” issued by the Minister of the Environment of Québec (“Minister”) to determine the levels of contamination and recommend further action required in respect of contaminated land which Imperial had owned in the past. This liability was not affected by intervening sales of the land, by the Minister’s approval of an earlier soil characterization and decontamination plan, nor by the fact that the Minister was himself being sued in respect of the contamination.
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