Author Archives: Drew Yewchuk

About Drew Yewchuk

B.A. (University of Alberta) J.D. (University of Calgary). Drew was formerly a staff lawyer with the University of Calgary's Public Interest Law Clinic from 2018-2022 and is now an LLM student at the Peter A. Allard School of Law.

Albertan Waits: One Thousand and Three Hundred Delays

By: Drew Yewchuk

Case Commented on: Alberta Energy v Alberta (IPC), 2024 ABKB 198 (CanLII)

 PDF Version: Albertan Waits: One Thousand and Three Hundred Delays

Alberta Energy v Alberta (IPC), 2024 ABKB 198 (CanLII) is another decision relating to attempts to use the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act, RSA 2000, c F-25 (FOIP) to obtain records from Alberta Energy about their May 2020 decision to rescind the Coal Development Policy for Alberta (1976). Nigel Bankes described the initial rescission of the policy here and the reinstatement in February 2021 here.

The circumstances in Alberta Energy v Alberta (IPC) are an outrageous example of how Alberta’s elected officials exploit weaknesses in FOIP to conceal how government decision-making works to keep Albertans misinformed or disinformed. Continue reading →

Yatar v TD Insurance Meloche Monnex: Limited Statutory Rights of Appeal and The Availability of Judicial Review

By: Shaun Fluker, Drew Yewchuk, and Nigel Bankes

Case Commented On: Yatar v TD Insurance Meloche Monnex, 2024 SCC 8 (CanLII)

 PDF Version: Yatar v TD Insurance Meloche Monnex: Limited Statutory Rights of Appeal and The Availability of Judicial Review

This post discusses the recent Supreme Court decision in Yatar v TD Insurance Meloche Monnex, 2024 SCC 8 (CanLII) (Yatar). The decision addresses the availability of judicial review of administrative decisions when the legislature has established a restricted statutory right of appeal for those same decisions. This unanimous decision is an important affirmation of the continued availability of judicial review – at least for grounds of review not covered by the statutory appeal right. However, it seems likely that this decision, especially when read together with the Court’s decision in Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration) v Vavilov, 2019 SCC 65 (CanLII) (Vavilov) will encourage parallel or sequential filings under both the statutory appeal provisions and for judicial review. Continue reading →

Alphabow’s Regulatory Appeal: The AER Hearing Panel Misunderstood Their Job

By: Drew Yewchuk

Decision Commented on: Alphabow Energy Ltd: Regulatory Appeals of AER Orders (Regulatory Appeals 1943516 and 1943521), 2024 ABAER 001 (Alphabow)

PDF Version: Alphabow’s Regulatory Appeal: The AER Hearing Panel Misunderstood Their Job

This is a comment on an Alberta Energy Regulator (AER) hearing panel decision following a regulatory appeal of enforcement action against a company that was failing to meet the AER’s expectations for regulatory compliance.

Because of an administrative law mistake by the AER hearing panel, the decision is not what it should be. The AER’s handling of financially troubled corporations with large closure liabilities, significant unpaid debts, compliance troubles, and financial problems is a multi-billion dollar policy problem for Alberta. The decision should have assessed the AER’s policy approach to one of these companies, but the hearing panel misunderstood their role and assessed only procedural fairness and ‘reasonableness’ in the restricted sense that word applies on judicial review. As a result, the decision is less interesting than it should be, since it only finds that what the AER did was legal and says nothing about whether it was good policy or in the public interest. Continue reading →

Misunderstanding Cooperative Federalism: Environment and Climate Change Canada Unreasonably Failed to Protect Migratory Bird Habitat

By: Drew Yewchuk

Case Commented on: Western Canada Wilderness Committee v Canada (Environment and Climate Change), 2024 FC 167 (CanLII)

PDF Version: Misunderstanding Cooperative Federalism: Environment and Climate Change Canada Unreasonably Failed to Protect Migratory Bird Habitat

Western Canada Wilderness Committee v Canada (Environment and Climate Change),  2024 FC 167 (CanLII)  is a recent decision of the Federal Court rejecting the federal Minister of Environment and Climate Change’s restrictive interpretation of migratory bird habitat under the Species at Risk Act, SC 2002, c 29 (SARA). The decision also offers some interesting notes about co-operative federalism in the environmental context. Continue reading →

Grading the AER Liability Management Performance Report

By: Shaun Fluker, Drew Yewchuk, and Martin Olszynski

Report Commented On: Liability Management Performance Report

PDF Version: Grading the AER Liability Management Performance Report

On January 17, 2024 the Alberta Energy Regulator (AER) published a Liability Management Performance Report. This is the first published AER report to the public on progress being made by industry under the Liability Management Framework to reduce Alberta’s massive unfunded closure liability in the conventional (non-oil sands) oil and gas sector. The last comparable report from the AER on liability management was from September 2005. Somewhat predictably, in its news release, the AER reflected positively on industry’s performance and indicated that this will be an annual report with the objective of “. . . improving transparency of industry’s management of conventional oil and gas liabilities as well as to develop performance measure baselines and ongoing assessments of the industry as a whole and licensees specifically.” The response elsewhere was less enthusiastic. Some, like the Rural Municipalities of Alberta, reserved judgment pending further analysis; while others more critically noted that the Report curiously understates the overall liability amount, using a liability calculation method from 2015 that subsequent analysis by the AER revealed to be a vast under-estimation. The Report provides some aggregated data and licensee-specific information and accordingly gets partial marks for some transparency, but it absolutely fails to give the public adequate context to fully understand whether this should be read as good or poor performance by industry and says almost nothing at all about the AER’s performance. Secrecy and capture continue to govern liability management in Alberta.

Continue reading →