Kanata Golf Case Could Be Heard By Supreme Court
This is a release from the City of Ottawa:
—
To / Destinataire Mayor & Members of Council From/ Expéditeur Stuart Huxley, Interim City Solicitor Subject / Objet ClubLink Corporation ULC Application for Leave to Appeal to
Supreme Court of Canada
Date: February 5, 2025
The Court of Appeal for Ontario released its Decision on January 21, 2025, in the matter of City of Ottawa v. ClubLink Corporation ULC declaring certain contractual provisions with a developer to be void and of no effect. The 1981 agreement in question, relating to golf course lands in Kanata North, required preservation of 40% of land to remain open space. The City has maintained that the contract should be honoured to reflect the objectives of protecting green space. Disappointingly, the recent decision sets aside these contractual obligations.
Voiding municipal contract provisions raises questions of significant public interest and importance as ultimately this is about upholding the decisions made by elected municipal councils, past, present, and future, and ensuring that the contractual commitments made with municipalities in good faith are respected. Municipalities must be able to make long-term decisions through agreements with confidence that they will be binding to allow for long term policy and planning objectives to endure. Allowing the current ruling to stand could have far reaching consequences for municipal governance, contract enforcement, and public trust in these decision-making and implementation processes.
Considering the foregoing, I have determined it proper to act within delegated authority1 to take steps to apply for leave to appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada. An application will be filed with the Court by mid-March 2025. It is expected that a decision on the City’s leave application could be made during 2025. If the Court grants the City leave to appeal, an appeal process would then be triggered. If leave to appeal were to be denied, that would end this litigation and the Court of Appeal’s recent decision declaring the contract provisions void would stand.
I will update Members of Council as to the outcome of the City’s application for leave to appeal.
For You:
Court Throws Roadblock To Kanata Golf Deal
Sprung Structures: City Hall Refuses To Learn: BENN
Kanata Plagued By Doors Busted By Youths
Bookmark The Bulldog, click here
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
– The Bulldog – News Feed Enter 
Lets compare:
a) Kanata green-space meets or exceeds the official plan goals of 2 Hectares/1000 people and the city is pulling out all stops to go to the Supreme Court to keep a private golf course from development.
b) Ottawa Urban areas in the core is grossly under served in green-space and yet a developer is being SOLD part of the only major parkland (Lansdowne), and then partnered with our tax dollars in the removing public green-space to make smaller facilities for paid events. The city is growing by 40% in the next 3 decades and smaller facilities are being planned after removing public spaces!
I cannot understand the logic, but is seems suspicious and b) is going to make life worse for many current and future citizens. I’m not sure about the total impact of a).
It seems as though the City has a bottomless pit of taxpayers money to just delay this. We’re in a housing crisis and the City is forcing people to continue to play golf whether they like it or not. :)