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Municipal - Standard of Review (SOR). Windsor Housing Providers Inc. v. Windsor (City)
In Windsor Housing Providers Inc. v. Windsor (City) (Ont CA, 2025) the Ontario Court of Appeal dismissed an appeal, here from a dismissed JR attempting to quash a municipal by-law that licensed "residential rental housing".
Here the court comments on the JR SOR, and 'statutory' interpretation, applicable to municipal by-law issues:[9] As the application judge correctly noted, a generous, deferential standard of review is to be adopted toward the decisions of municipalities: Shell Canada Products Ltd. v. Vancouver (City), 1994 CanLII 115 (SCC), [1994] 1 S.C.R. 231, at p. 247, per McLachlin J. (dissenting, but not on this point); Nanaimo (City) v. Rascal Trucking Ltd., 2000 SCC 13, [2000] 1 S.C.R. 342, at paras. 35-37; Equity Waste Management of Canada v. Panorama Investment Group Ltd. (1997), 1997 CanLII 2742 (ON CA), 35 O.R. (3d) 321 (C.A.), at pp. 339-340. A municipality has broad by-law-making authority to enable it “to govern its affairs as it considers appropriate and to enhance the municipality’s ability to respond to municipal issues”: Municipal Act, 2001, S.O. 2001, c. 25 s. 8(1). Therefore, a municipality may make by-laws respecting a wide variety of matters, including the health, safety and well-being of persons and the protection of persons and property: Municipal Act, 2001, S.O. 2001, c. 25, ss. 8(1), 10, 11; 2211266 Ontario Inc. (Gentlemen’s Club) v. Brantford (City), 2013 ONCA 300, 307 O.A.C. 34, at paras. 8-11.
[10] The application judge properly considered the question of whether the powers of Council were exercised in good faith in the interest of the public without arbitrary or unfair conduct and with the degree of fairness, openness and impartiality required of a municipal government: Equity Waste Management of Canada, at p. 340. She concluded, correctly in our view, that the By-Law was clearly passed in good faith for its stated purposes which were within the respondent’s jurisdiction to enact for the good of its residents, including how to roll out its pilot project. As the application judge found, there was no evidence to support the appellant’s suggestion that the pilot project improperly targeted student housing.
[11] Moreover, the appellant’s submission that the interpretation of the By-Law should be divorced from the respondent’s actions and specified intentions leading up to its enactment, including its resolution that states this is a pilot project, runs counter to well-established principle that the interpretation of by-laws must be contextual. As the Supreme Court instructed in United Taxi Drivers’ Fellowship of Southern Alberta v. Calgary (City), 2004 SCC 19, [2004] 1 S.C.R., at para. 8:A broad and purposive approach to the interpretation of municipal legislation is also consistent with this Court’s approach to statutory interpretation generally. The contextual approach requires “the words of an Act…to be read in their entire context and in their grammatical and ordinary sense harmoniously with the scheme of the Act, the object of the Act, and the intention of Parliament”. [Citations omitted.]
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