Author Archives: Drew Yewchuk

About Drew Yewchuk

B.A. (UAlberta) J.D. (UCalgary) LLM (U.B.C.) Drew was a full-time staff lawyer with the University of Calgary's Public Interest Law Clinic from 2018-2022. He is now an PhD student at the Peter A. Allard School of Law. His research focuses on administrative secrecy, access to information law, species at risk, resource law, and environmental liabilities.

Offers to Settle and The Public Interest in Charter Litigation: Stewart v Toronto (Police Services Board), 2020 ONCA 460

By: Drew Yewchuk & Sarah Shibley

PDF Version: Offers To Settle and the Public Interest in Charter Litigation: Stewart v Toronto (Police Services Board), 2020 ONCA 460

Case Commented On:  Stewart v Toronto (Police Services Board), 2020 ONCA 460 (CanLII)

Stewart v Toronto (Police Services Board), 2020 ONCA 460 (CanLII) is a costs decision that concludes a ten-year legal battle about the power of police to stop and search protestors. Mr. Stewart was successful in obtaining a court decision that the Toronto Police Service (TPS) had violated the Charter by searching him without lawful justification and interfering with his freedom of speech. Despite his success, because of the Toronto Police Service’s $10,000 settlement offer to Mr. Stewart in 2017 and Ontario’s rules for litigation costs and offers to settle, it ultimately cost Mr. Stewart more than $60,000 to successfully enforce his constitutional rights. This post argues that the normal cost rules relating to offers to settle are ill suited to public interest litigation against government bodies.

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When Are the COVID-19 Related Changes and Suspensions to Albertan Law Scheduled to End?

By: Drew Yewchuk

PDF Version: When Are the COVID-19 Related Changes and Suspensions to Albertan Law Scheduled to End?

Decision Commented On: COVID-19 orders and legislation

A recurring theme of recent ABlawg posts is the difficulty in determining what legal authority is being used to make emergency-based changes to Alberta law due to COVID-19, and precisely what the changes are. This post is a variation on that theme, setting out the end dates set for a selection of COVID-19 related legal changes, and discussing how the end dates should be re-thought soon. Continue reading →

Governance and Accountability: Preconditions for Committing Public Funds to Orphan Wells and Facilities and Inactive Wells

By: Nigel Bankes, Shaun Fluker, Martin Olszynski and Drew Yewchuk

PDF Version: Governance and Accountability: Preconditions for Committing Public Funds to Orphan Wells and Facilities and Inactive Wells

Announcement commented on: Department of Finance Canada, Canada’s COVID-19 Economic Response Plan: New Support to Protect Canadian Jobs, April 17, 2020

As any resident of this province knows, the Alberta oil and gas sector’s problem of underfunded environmental liabilities has been growing for decades. On April 17, 2020, in response to the impact of both the COVID-19 pandemic and the Saudi/Russian price war, the federal government announced an injection of $1.7 billion of public funds to support the ‘clean up’ of inactive and orphan wells in Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia. With respect to Alberta, $200 million will go to the Orphan Well Association as a loan to deal with orphan wells (i.e. wells that have no owner) while $1 billion will go to the Government of Alberta to deal with inactive wells (i.e. wells that are not producing but have not been properly closed and remediated).

The first part of this post examines the background to the Orphan Well Association and how it has moved from being an industry funded organization to the recipient of significant public funds. We suggest that this change in the source of funding is likely permanent and thus demands a complete rewrite of the governance structure for orphan wells in the interests of transparency and accountability. The second part of this post offers comments on the proposed program for inactive wells. This part of the post is shorter and more speculative because the announcement is remarkably vague and lacking in important details on this part of the program. Continue reading →

When Solicitor-Client Privilege Protects the Government from You

By: Drew Yewchuk

PDF Version: When Solicitor-Client Privilege Protects the Government from You

Decision Commented On: Edmonton Police Service v Alberta (Information and Privacy Commissioner), 2020 ABQB 207

Edmonton Police Service v Alberta (Information and Privacy Commissioner), 2020 ABQB 207 (EPS v IPC) is a decision on judicial review of Order F2018-36 (Re), made by an adjudicator at the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner (OIPC). The decision addresses the “Privileged Information” exemption from disclosure found in section 27 of Alberta’s Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act, RSA 2000 C-F-25 (FOIP). This post discusses the background to the decision and offers some commentary on the broader freedom of information implications of the decision. Continue reading →

Freedom of Information in Alberta: The Troubles With the OIPC

By: Drew Yewchuk

PDF Version: Freedom of Information in Alberta: The Troubles With the OIPC

Decision Commented On: Re Alberta Health, F2019-16, 2019 CanLII 33710

This is the third in a series of posts on Alberta’s access to information legislation, the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act, RSA 2000, c F-25 (FOIP Act). The first post set out the basic structure of the access to information, and the second post was a case study on the use of the FOIP Act. This post focuses on the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner (OIPC), which serves as the initial dispute resolution mechanism for FOIP issues. The post also describes how the “adequate alternative remedy principle” can make troubled administrative review bodies into obstacles to effective oversight. Continue reading →