This case was heard in the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia.

The numbered company 3266304 Nova Scotia Ltd. applied for a license to operate a quarry in Brooklyn, Nova Scotia. After a public consultation process in which local residents expressed concerns about the proposed quarry’s effects on their drinking water, the Department of the Environment requested that the company provide additional information. After requesting, and gaining, an extension of the deadline, the company provided additional information to the Department. After reviewing it, the Department requested further information. For roughly two years, the company asked for repeated extensions of the new deadline for more information, until finally the Department notified the company that it would not grant any further extensions and that the company’s application had been rejected. The company appealed the Department’s decision to the Minister of the Environment, but the Minister dismissed the appeal. The company then appealed to the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia.

After finding that the appropriate standard of review was the standard of reasonableness, the Court held that the Minister’s decision was not unreasonable, as the Department had limited resources to expend administering application processes and could not allow those processes to extend indefinitely. The Court therefore dismissed the numbered company’s appeal.

View the Decision on CanLII: https://www.canlii.org/en/ns/nssc/doc/2016/2016nssc353/2016nssc353.html

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