IN-DEPTH: How Feds Have Pushed Jurisdictional Boundaries With Environment Policies

Canadian courts have recently identified federal overreach in two pieces of environmental legislation, raising questions about where federal jurisdiction ends and how politicians may try to expand its boundaries. On Nov. 16, a Federal Court judge said the government’s classification of all plastic products as toxic—which would bring them under the jurisdiction of the federal Canadian Environmental Protection Act—was “unreasonable and unconstitutional.” The federal government made this classification in a cabinet order, which provided the justification for its single-use plastics ban legislation. But that was likely just a “pretext,” says Scott Edward Bennett, associate professor of political science at Carleton University....