In late December, we were successful in having Environment Canada drop all charges against one of our clients. To the considerable fright of company staff, Environment Canada had executed a very public search warrant, with a huge search team, and had seized boxes of documents. Months later, the company, and its president personally, were charged with numerous offences under the Export and Import of Hazardous Waste and Hazardous Recyclable Materials regulations. The maximum penalties for such offences are very high; clients were upset and several staff quit.
In fact, the Crown had no reasonable prospect of conviction, a fact which it eventually admitted, and all charges were completely dropped against both defendants. An excellent result, if a painful lesson for our client.
