Give Canadian youth their day in court! Kids appeal 2020 loss trying to sue Canada over climate inaction where Harper’s Justice Michael D. Manson ruled it’s not for courts to decide. What cave does he (and Harper) live in?
Fifteen youth are plaintiffs in in the federal youth-led climate lawsuit La Rose v. His Majesty the King. The plaintiffs, in alphabetical order, are: Montay Jesse Beaubien-Day, Haana Edenshaw, Zoe Grames-Webb, Albert Lalonde, Cecilia La Rose, Madeline Laurendeau, Mikaeel Mahmood, Daniel (Hiroki) Masuzumi Jr., Lucas Prud’homme, Ira Reinhart-Smith, Raine Robinson, Sophia Sidarous, Sáj Starcevich, Sadie Vipond, and Lauren Wright. Photo: Robin Loznak / Our Children’s Trust. jpg
We are failing our children, imperilling their future by government inaction — and sometimes government action — that makes climate change worse.
But, it turns out, when adults fail, youth step up.
Last month, in La Rose v. His Majesty the King, 15 courageous children and youth were in court asking three Federal Court of Appeal judges to hear their claim to a constitutional right to a livable climate.
The federal government, meanwhile, wants to stop the case before the courts can even hear the youths’ argument.
In 2020, the Trial Court allowed the government’s preliminary motion to dismiss. But now, with that decision under appeal, judges have another chance to take up the job that Canada’s Constitution gives them: hold governments to their constitutional obligations. The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms requires governments to respect and protect the rights to life and security of the person — rights the climate crisis puts at risk. To date, Canada is one of the biggest climate polluters in the world and has failed to meet every climate target that has been set.
Young people have little power over climate policy. Sure, these youth tell us, they can turn off the lights, recycle containers and put apple cores in the compost. But at this crisis point, it’s not enough, and they know it. Youth need governments to take urgent, broad and science-based action.
But it’s not happening. And when government refuses to act like a responsible adult, young people are forced to take to the streets, and to the courts.
It’s not fun to leave school early for meetings with lawyers, or spend hours preparing speeches. No one wishes for a childhood of protesting, school striking, or sitting in court. But today, younger generations have no choice: their future is literally at stake.
But wait — isn’t Canada a global climate leader? How does this legal context compare to elsewhere in the world?
The youths’ arguments in La Rose find broad support from law in other countries and from the net of international human rights obligations that Canada itself has helped build. The UN has accepted environmental protection as a human right, identifying the triple planetary crisis of climate change, nature loss and pollution as the top human rights challenges of our time. More than 150 countries recognize and protect the right to a healthy environment through their constitutions, national laws and judicial decisions.
Sadly, Canada has fallen behind.
Concepts like incrementalism — when taken to mean that courts must take baby steps to evolve what the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms protects — are dangerously out of touch with the rapid and dramatic impacts of climate change.
But adapting to a changing world is not new to the courts. They have long accepted and ensured that the “living tree” of our Constitution responds to emerging Canadian realities. Constitutional legitimacy demands that our judges engage with novel arguments.
For example, in 1929, the Privy Council expanded the Constitution’s use of the term “persons” to refer to both women and men, despite that when written in 1867, the term clearly meant men only.
Today, at a concentration of 419 parts per million of atmospheric carbon (when 350 ppm is considered “safe” and “stable”), we need an evolved constitutional understanding to include protection from disastrous climate change within the rights to life, security of the person and equality. Scientists believe 350 ppm is the threshold for serious danger to people and the planet. The La Rose case was filed in 2019, at 407 ppm.
It is shameful that Canada’s federal government wants this case to go away before it even gets started. Is this the legacy we want to leave our children — judicial avoidance of the most pressing issue of our time?
Human rights are broadly understood as standards that recognize and protect the dignity of all human beings. Well, the climate crisis is here — and its impacts are already putting the well-being of children and future generations into question. If our constitutionally protected Charter rights won’t help protect our children and grandchildren from a dangerous future, are they really fulfilling their purpose?
Our message is simple: Give our youth their day in court. And when they get there, listen carefully to what’s at stake for them. Consider what constitutional protection of key individual rights must include to be relevant in a world gripped by climate disaster and scarred by environmental destruction.
Zoe Grames-Webb is a 16-year-old plaintiff in La Rose v. His Majesty the King; Annabel Webb is a human rights fellow at the David Suzuki Foundation; Margot Young is a professor of constitutional law at Allard School of Law, UBC.
