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Stratas JA - Reasons for Decision. Halton (Regional Municipality) v. Canada (Transportation Agency)
In Halton (Regional Municipality) v. Canada (Transportation Agency) (Fed CA, 2024) the Federal Court of Appeal dismissed an appeal from Ontario municipalities of a decision of the Canada Transportation Act [CTA] [s.41(1)].
Here Stratas JA expounds on the adequacy of reasons, focussing on the detail required:D. Adequacy of reasons
[21] The appellants submit that the Agency’s reasons are insufficient. I disagree.
[22] In the case of statutory appeals from administrative decision-makers, do we apply the legal standard to evaluate first-instance courts’ reasons in cases like R. v. Sheppard, 2002 SCC 26, [2002] 1 S.C.R. 869? Or must we consider some or all of the Supreme Court’s observations in Vavilov on the adequacy of administrative decision-makers’ reasons when they are assessed under reasonableness review? I note that there is some overlap between the two. Both require the reviewing court to read reasons functionally and contextually in light of the record as a whole, including the evidence adduced and the key submissions made.
[23] This last point is key and it is often overlooked by those seeking to overturn a decision. All decision-makers, particularly administrative decision-makers to whom the legislature has assigned a decision-making task for reasons of efficiency and expedition, aim to synthesize their reasons down to the essential factors that led them to decide the way they did. They are not to create an encyclopedic account of all of the evidence and all of the parties’ positions, as if their task is to report in detail everything that happened during the numerous days of the hearing. Instead, they are to distill and synthesize, ensuring that the parties, reviewing courts and the public observing the matter can discern where the administrative decision-maker was coming from and why it decided the way it did.
[24] In words equally apposite to the review of administrative decisions, this Court has stressed the "“realities about the craft of writing reasons”" and has described it as an "“imprecise art suffused by difficult judgment calls that cannot be easily second-guessed”": Mahjoub v. Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2017 FCA 157, [2018] 2 F.C.R. 344 at para. 69. Again, in words worthy of note in the context of administrative decision-making, this Court described the plight faced by judges with writing reasons in a technical hearing that has lasted for weeks on end:Immersed from day-to-day and week-to-week in a long and complex trial such as this, trial judges occupy a privileged and unique position. Armed with the tools of logic and reason, they study and observe all of the witnesses and the exhibits. Over time, factual assessments develop, evolve, and ultimately solidify into a factual narrative, full of complex interconnections, nuances and flavour.
When it comes time to draft reasons in a complex case, trial judges are not trying to draft an encyclopedia memorializing every last morsel of factual minutiae, nor can they. They distill and synthesize masses of information, separating the wheat from the chaff and, in the end, expressing only the most important factual findings and justifications for them.
Sometimes appellants attack as palpable and overriding error the non-mention or scanty mention of matters they consider to be important. In assessing this, care must be taken to distinguish true palpable and overriding error on the one hand, from the legitimate by-product of distillation and synthesis or innocent inadequacies of expression on the other. (Canada v. South Yukon Forest Corporation, 2012 FCA 165, 431 N.R. 286 at paras. 49-51.) These observations are particularly apt in a case like this with a voluminous, complex and sprawling record speaking to a diverse array of interests, where the governing standard is whether the placement of the railway lines is "“reasonable”", a somewhat subjective standard elusive of precise definition.
[25] Here, in my view, under any legal standard, the Agency’s detailed and comprehensive reasons—446 often heavily detailed paragraphs stretching over 100 pages, as well as an appendix—are adequate. In particular, the Agency found that the concerns of the appellants, particularly the appellant municipalities, had been or would be addressed through mitigation by the appellant municipalities themselves or were not specific to the location of the railway line. The Agency agreed with the prior joint hearing panel that the project’s direct effects were small and those effects were likely to occur regardless of whether CN’s project proceeds.
[26] One measure of adequacy is whether the parties were able to articulate to this Court why, in their view, the Agency’s evaluation of whether or not the location of the railway lines was "“reasonable”" should be sustained or quashed on appeal. On that measure, the Agency’s reasons pass muster. Both sides knew where the Agency was coming from on all issues and argued their cases without difficulty.
[27] Finally, and perhaps most importantly, in evaluating the adequacy of the Agency’s reasons, one must consider what exactly the Agency was deciding.
[28] Some cases decided by some administrative decision-makers, by virtue of the relative concreteness and objective nature of the factors to be considered, can be written up in a very precise, concrete, objective way. Here, one might think of an adjudicative decision-maker that merely has to find the exact facts, identify the correct law, and apply the law to the facts.
[29] But other cases involve the subjective task of balancing conflicting, often qualitatively imprecise factors against a vague standard, such as "“reasonableness”" or "“in the public interest”". The conclusion rests more upon the overall impression of the administrative decision-maker, sometimes an impression more subjective than objective or mathematical, one that beggars precise description.
[30] In this case, the Agency had to be satisfied that, in the language of subsection 98(2), "“the location of the railway line is reasonable, taking into consideration requirements for railway operations and services and the interests of the localities that will be affected by the line”". On the facts of this case, the "“interests of the localities”" included interests relating to municipal revenues, air quality and noise, land use planning, requirements for railway operations and services, and mitigation of effects. The evidence on each of these was massive and sometimes complex.
[31] The Agency’s task under subsection 98(2) is not one that can be conducted with scientific or mathematical precision. This is not a case where the various detrimental effects of the railway line and the requirements for "“railway operations and services”" can be assigned a precise value and can be weighed against each other with exactitude in order to determine whether the location of the railway line is "“reasonable”". Rather, the Agency is in the realm of well-informed impressions that are difficult to describe with exactitude.
[32] On some issues, all that can be expected in the reasons in a case like this is a description of the main concerns presented by the parties, an articulation of observations informed by the evidence, some comment on the key evidence adduced, some observations relevant to the balancing required under subsection 98(2), and a conclusion that leaves neither this Court nor the parties wondering why the Agency decided the way it did on the key, contested issues.
[33] Overall, the Agency’s reasons do just that. They are adequate.
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