There is something refreshing about how the Canadian legal system operates, when it comes to challenges against the government. Compare this to, say, the USA and it’s breathtaking how thorough the judge wrote his opinion.
The first observation is that the judge breaks down the judgement into individual sections, some commonplace in American judgements and some not-so-common. A restatements of the relevant background is expected, but a thorough discussion for each piece of evidence/testimony introduced would have American jurists reeling. That level of detail normally is only articulated at appeals-level courts. But maybe that’s normal in Canada because appeals are not necessarily automatic like they are in the USA; I understand that Canadian appeals require seeking permission (aka “leave” from the judge) to submit an appeal for the upper-court to hear, or the upper-court must be sufficiently interested to want to hear it at all.
Another difference is apparently the standard for “mootness”. In the USA, stemming from the Case and Controversy clause in the federal constitution, judicial power is foreclosed when fully adjudicating the case at hand would not actually yield any different result. Whereas it seems that in Canada, there is more authority for a court to hear a case, if it originally started as a live controversy but resolving the core matter would clear the air, even though the present matter might not necessarily be any different. That is to say, Canadian courts retain discretion to continue a case, whereas American courts have to drop a case once mootness is found.
Finally, the judge in this case has no qualms calling out the government’s proferred experts for their notable omissions, contrary opinions to everyone else in the field, or when the expert’s testimony actually bolsters the supposition that bike lane removal will cause harms or won’t reduce roadway congestion. American judges sometimes like to “split the difference” when it comes to expert testimony, but when it comes to rights of great import, that’s like trying to split a baby. A supposed expert may not gallivant into court, spew anecdata, and be admitted to the same degree as all other experts who have testified to the contrary and came with srudies and citations. The section where the judge analyzes the evidence/testimony for undue bias is particularly apt.
Overall, the ruling seems well-supported in showing that the law’s execution necessarily implicates the Canadian Charter, by being arbitrary about who should be free of bodily injury and who shouldn’t. That said, the ruling is also quite narrow, only limited to the three separated bike paths in question. But this is likely because the complaint only went after the more egregious, most overturn-able part of the provincial law. The remaining provisions such as requiring Ministry approval for future bike lanes that displace motor vehicles lanes would continue to apply. But likely, those provisions can be litigated after the Ministry issues its first such denial.
It should also be noted that the case turned quite heavily on the separated nature of the three bike paths. The judge specifically contrasted evidence of typical bike lanes against those which have physical barriers and protections. Thus, subsequent cases involving the removal of painted bike lanes are not guaranteed to have as easy of a time in court.
Finally, as another procedural difference to America, the Canadian process for seeking an interlocutory injunction (USA: preliminary injunction) seems to move quicker. Though this might have to do with the obvious “balance of equities” problem, since if the province could quickly destroy the bike lanes before the court hears the matter, then that’s a lot of waste if it turns out the law was bad. Meanwhile, the USA federal judiciary seems to be gutting the notion of any sort of balancing, blindly giving benefit of doubt to the federal government’s most far-fetched legal claims of power. But I digress.
