ONTARIO SUPERIOR COURT OF JUSTICE ZEXI LI, HAPPY GOAT COFFEE COMPANY INC,

From the evidence of these officers and the evidence of many witnesses who testified as to the smell given off from the water throughtout the 35 miles of the course of the river below the defendant's plant, I have no hesitation in finding that in the latter part of the year 1946 and more especially in the year 1947 the water of the river gave off a very offensive odour throughout its course from t. [...] 15 Sitting as a jury on the case, the inference I draw is that the pollution of the river has substantially affected the fishing therein and that the pollution was responsible for killing fish found in the river in the spring of 1947. [...] It has been now settled that the right to the enjoyment of a natural stream of water on the surface, ex jure naturae, belongs to the proprietor of the adjoining lands, as a natural incident to the right to the soil itself, and that he is entitled to the benefit of it, as he is to all the other natural advantages belonging to the land of which he is the owner. [...] 683: "With respect to the ownership of the bed of the river, this cannot be the natural foundation of riparian rights properly so called, because the word 'riparian' is relative to the bank, and not the bed, of the stream; and the connection, when it exists, of property on the bank with property in the bed of the stream depends, not upon nature, but on grant or presumption of law ... [...] 444 at 520, held that in the case of navigable rivers, the beds of which have not been granted but remain in the Crown in the right of the Province, the right of fishing is a public right not restricted to waters within the ebb and flow of the tide.