Province says bid for judicial evaluate of Kemptville jail website too late

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Opponents of the plan to construct a brand new provincial jail on Kemptville-area farmland waited too lengthy to file for a judicial evaluate, legal professionals for Ontario’s Ministry of the Legal professional Common argued Thursday.

Kemptville residents Kirk Albert and Victor Lachance filed an software for a judicial evaluate of the province’s choice to construct a 235-bed jail on what they name prime agricultural land in August 2022, two years after the plans had been publicly introduced.

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The opponents of the jail proposal argue the provincial authorities violated its personal pointers on how and when agricultural land could possibly be used for non-agriculture functions.

In arguments earlier than a judicial panel, provincial legal professionals Shayna Levine-Poch and Susan Keenan made a movement to dismiss the evaluate software, referencing the Judicial Evaluation Process Act. In summer time 2020, the regulation was modified to ascertain a 30-day restrict for functions for judicial evaluate so the province may have “certainty and finality” in its decision-making.

The opposing group, Levine-Poch argued, had 30 days after the Aug. 27, 2020, information launch asserting the jail plan to use for a judicial evaluate and stated the group didn’t have “an inexpensive rationalization” for the two-year delay in doing so. She stated the group had been conscious of the provincial plans “inside days” of the announcement and had begun consulting with the municipality of North Grenville and authorized and agricultural consultants in late 2020.

Space residents stated they wished extra data on why the positioning previously owned by the Agriculture Analysis Institute of Ontario, was chosen for the jail, however Levine-Poch argued the ministry sufficiently defined its rationale throughout public data periods. The province’s legal professionals additionally argued the plan opponents made different makes an attempt to gather data, together with Freedom of Data Act requests.

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Judicial evaluate was not for use as a last-resort possibility, Levine-Poch stated, as “there can be no finality” in provincial decision-making.

Provincial legal professionals introduced related arguments earlier than Justice Robert Smith in spring 2023, however Smith choose dismissed that software, ruling the opposition group’s authorized efforts to overturn the province’s choice on the jail needs to be heard by a full judicial panel.

Stéphane Émard-Chabot, the lawyer representing the jail opponents, together with the Coalition Towards the Proposed Jail and the Jail Opposition Group, argued the province “set the tempo” after asserting its intention to construct a jail on prime farmland.

Justice Laura Stewart requested Émard-Chabot when the 30-day “timer” for the group to submit for a judicial evaluate ought to have began, and he stated he couldn’t choose a day on the calendar.

However, he stated, the clock “couldn’t have began working till the candidates had carried out all the things they might to acquire related data.”

The province, Émard-Chabot stated, made a dedication to transparency in 2020 and solicited questions from the neighborhood, however by no means answered them. Neighborhood members then tried to file Freedom of Data Act requests that had been both denied or stalled, he stated.

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“Rational residents waited, took their very own processes to get the information that might help authorized evaluation, a authorized evaluate,” he stated. “There was merely no data being offered.”

Justice Frederick Myers requested if the province had “led your purchasers down a backyard path,” and the lawyer replied, “completely.”

“Why did it take time? As a result of the province stored saying, ‘We’ll offer you all of the stuff,’ and by no means did,” Émard-Chabot stated.

Keenan stated the province had no obligation to provide the general public any data that might “help or assist an applicant to problem a authorities choice.”

The neighborhood had considerations in regards to the jail’s impression on native points reminiscent of policing and well being care, however the query earlier than the judicial evaluate was in regards to the Planning Act, she added.

Keenan stated the province had paid $2.4 million for the Kemptville land and already spent greater than $4 million on the mission, together with “unrecoverable” prices reminiscent of planning and design bills, testing, workers salaries and extra.

“At this level, there’s a severe danger one other website can’t be positioned resulting from market situations and mission constraints,” she stated. “If that had been the case, the ministry must do a brand new search, with further value and delay.”

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Thursday’s proceedings had been considerably delayed when the digital assembly room was bombarded with spammers.

The judicial panel reserved its choice on the movement to dismiss the proceedings and stated it could reconvene on Feb. 16.

With information from Aedan Helmer

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