In a recent ruling, the Ontario Court of Appeal upheld a lower court’s decision to dismiss a developer’s constitutional challenge of a 2023 law that restored 15 plots of land to the Greenbelt. The legislation in question reversed Premier Doug Ford’s previous initiative to open protected areas for development. Despite arguments from Minotar Holdings Inc. that the law infringed upon superior court authority and unwritten constitutional principles, the Appeal Court deemed such claims as potentially damaging to the constitutional balance and therefore rejected them.

Minotar Holdings Inc. initiated a lawsuit against the province in 2017, contending that their 210-acre land was wrongly included in the Greenbelt. Although a settlement was reached in 2022 to exclude 37 acres from the protected reserve, it was annulled in the aftermath of a scandal surrounding Ford’s attempt to open up Greenbelt land for development. Following critical reports by the auditor general and integrity commissioner, all 15 parcels, including Minotar’s 37-acre tract, were returned to the Greenbelt through legislation, which also mandated that any future boundary adjustments must be made through legislative processes rather than regulations.

Despite arguments from Minotar’s legal representative, Paul Fruitman, that the law shielded the government from judicial scrutiny over Greenbelt changes, the Appeal Court, in a 2-1 decision, aligned with the lower court’s stance that the province’s actions did not impinge on superior court jurisdiction. The court emphasized that the legislative amendments constituted lawful modifications to substantive laws and did not encroach upon inherent judicial powers, falling within established regulatory frameworks.