The Ontario Court of Appeal has upheld a lower court’s decision to dismiss a developer’s constitutional challenge against a 2023 law that returned 15 parcels of land to the Greenbelt. The provincial law, which overturned Premier Doug Ford’s previous plan to open protected land for development, was contested by lawyers representing Minotar Holdings Inc. They argued that the law infringed on the authority of superior courts and unwritten constitutional principles.
In a recent ruling, the Appeal Court stated that accepting the developer’s argument would disrupt the constitutional balance and, therefore, rejected it. Minotar Holdings Inc. initiated legal action against the province in 2017, claiming that their 210-acre land was wrongly included in the Greenbelt.
Following a dispute, the developer and the province reached an agreement in 2022 to exclude 37 acres from the protected area. However, this settlement was revoked a year later amid a scandal involving the opening of Greenbelt land for development by Ford’s administration. In response to critical reports from the auditor general and integrity commissioner highlighting favoritism towards specific developers, all 15 parcels of land, including Minotar’s 37-acre property, were returned to the Greenbelt.
The law reinstating the land mandated that any future alterations to the Greenbelt boundary must be enacted through legislation rather than regulations. This provision, as argued by Minotar’s lawyer Paul Fruitman in 2023, shielded the government from judicial scrutiny over Greenbelt changes.
Despite the developer’s claims, the Appeal Court, with a 2-1 majority, agreed with the lower court’s ruling that the province’s actions did not overstep the jurisdiction of superior courts. The court emphasized that the legislative amendments pertained to substantive law changes, not constraints on inherent judicial powers, and fell within established regulatory frameworks.