Imperial Oil Ltd. (Appellant) v. Attorney General of Quebec for and on behalf of the Minister of the Environment, André Boisclair (formerly Paul Bégin) (Respondent) and others

This case arose out of the application of the polluter-pay statutory principle that has been incorporated into the environmental legislation of Quebec. When contamination caused problems at a site that had been operated by the appellant, Imperial Oil Limited, Quebec’s Minister of the Environment ordered Imperial, pursuant to s. 31.42 of the Environment Quality Act (EQA), to prepare at its own expense a site characterization study which would also include appropriate decontamination measures and submit it to the Minister. Imperial challenged that order before the Administrative Tribunal of Québec. It argued, inter alia, that the Minister was in a conflict of interest because he had been involved in the earlier decontamination work and was now being sued concerning the contamination of the site by the present owners of the land. Thus there had been a violation of the rules of procedural fairness. The Supreme Court analyzed the relevant statutory provisions, such as the statutory framework created by the Environment Quality Act, the duty of impartiality in administrative law and variations of that duty and the Rules of Procedural Fairness. It concluded that the Minister had the authority to issue the kind of order at stake in the present case under the EQA. Section 31.42, which set out what was called the polluter-pay principle, allowed for the use of a broad discretion by the Minister. Under that provision, the Minister could impose an obligation on the parties responsible for the contamination of the environment to conduct the studies required in order to ascertain the nature of the problem identified, to submit a plan for the corrective work and, where applicable, to have that work performed at their own expense. The appeal was dismissed.