Court File No. COA-23-CV-0858

The misalignment between the interests of litigants with private standing and the broader public interest was central to the foundational decisions of Thorson, McNeil, and Finlay, which should have informed the analysis of the courts below. [...] The Federal Court of Appeal conferred public interest standing based on this line of reasoning in Democracy Watch v Canada (Attorney General), an application for judicial review challenging the legality of the federal Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner’s power to use a conflict of interest screen as a compliance measure under section 29 of the federal Conflict of Interest Act.18 As the C. [...] The Superior Court held that the “legislative scheme suggests that only lobbyists are to have standing to challenge a decision of the Commissioner,” arising from the statutory grant of standing under section 17.8 of the Lobbyists Registration Act to “only the subject of an inquiry”. [...] 35, the superior courts are “ideally placed to ensure the maintenance of the rule of law” and are indeed “the primary guardians of the rule of law”.26 While section 96 protects the core jurisdiction of the superior courts, this Appeal provides this Court with the opportunity to clarify that section 96, in addition, is the constitutional basis for standing rules.27 Since superior courts cannot proc. [...] 30(1) An animal welfare inspector who has reasonable grounds to believe that an animal is in distress and who is able to promptly find the owner or custodian of the animal may order the owner or custodian to take such action as may, in the opinion of the inspector, be necessary to relieve the animal of its distress, which may include, without limiting the generality of the foregoing, having the an.