Larissa Kurz
Regina Leader-Post
A Saskatoon law firm that explored the idea of suing the province over its wildfire response this spring says the case will not move forward.
Chad Eggerman, co-founding partner of Procido LLP, said his firm does feel there is a basis to pursue the Government of Saskatchewan for alleged negligence. However, preliminary legal analysis flagged potential constitutional issues that could drag out the class action lawsuit further than he felt was reasonable.
Eggerman said legislation passed by the province in 2015 could legally waive any responsibility for wildfire management, thus turning a potential suit into a broader legal challenge that would require significant time and money to pursue.
“We feel for everyone, but at the end of the day we are a for-profit law firm,” he said in an interview with the Regina Leader-Post. “We’d only get paid for all of our hard work if we’re successful, so we need a reasonable chance of success, and that’s where we’re at right now.”
Procido notified interested parties last week of its decision, stating in an email obtained by the Leader-Post that the “matter may not lend itself well to a class action that could be resolved in a reasonable time-frame. Our preliminary evaluation suggests this would be a long, drawn-out process, potentially lasting decades.
“On this basis, we have decided the firm is not in a position to take on this matter as a class action at this time.”
Procido engaged potential clients interested in being part of the class action suit last week. Hundreds attended a webinar on July 7 to share personal stories and help determine if there were enough people who suffered similar harm or loss due to a perceived breach of duty by the province.
Based on those accounts, Eggerman said it is “fairly obvious” the government’s public safety agency “at least lacked resources to undertake forest management and fight fires.”
He said Procido heard allegations of insufficient planning to have enough firefighting personnel and equipment in place before fires grew out of control. There was also talk of late or unclear decisions about deploying and co-ordinating resources to protect communities at risk.
“People weren’t trained,” said Eggerman, summarizing hundreds of accounts. “There wasn’t equipment. There was no communication.”
More than 2,000 values — including homes, cabins and other structures — have been damaged or lost by wildfires in northern Saskatchewan as of July, according to the Saskatchewan Public Safety Agency (SPSA).
Eggerman said his firm estimated the scope of damages to be “approaching $2 billion” so far this year.
Asked about allegations of negligence, the Government of Saskatchewan said operational decisions “are made by highly trained and experienced SPSA staff focusing on preservation of human life as the highest priority.”
An emailed statement added that the province has provided $5.8 million in direct evacuation support to residents as of July, plus $15 million to the Canadian Red Cross for disaster support and $20 million for post-wildfire recovery and cleanup efforts.
“Government has not been served with any claims related to this matter. As this regards a hypothetical court matter, the province has no further comment to provide at this time,” said the statement.
Constitutional questions raised
Eggerman said Procido’s hesitation stems from Section 4 of the Wildfire Act, introduced as an update to 1982 legislation. It stipulates that the provincial government is not obligated to “carry out wildfire management on any land” or “pay compensation for loss or damage incurred” by wildfires.
This includes fire “prevention, detection, control, preparedness, suppression, investigation, research, training, education or reclamation,” as defined in the act.
“It was very clear that this revised part of this Act was designed to protect the Government of Saskatchewan,” said Eggerman. “That will be a big hurdle for us to be successful in any way in a class action lawsuit.”
He continued that it also raises a larger constitutional question. As the federal Constitution delegated authority over natural resources to the provinces in 1929, Eggerman postulated this clause could be argued as side-stepping that responsibility when it comes to forests.
He posed that there could be potential for a constitutional challenge on those grounds, adding that his firm has not made any decisions on pursuing a different type of lawsuit than a class action.
“We would need a client to pursue that in some way,” said Eggerman, who noted that the legal question is interesting because of Saskatchewan’s repeated claims that the federal government is overstepping provincial rights to manage natural resources when it comes to oil and gas.
In 2022, the province introduced the Saskatchewan First Act to assert jurisdiction over natural resources. It also convened an Economic Impact Assessment Tribunal in 2023 to asses what it called harmful federal environment policies, including the Clean Energy Regulations and Impact Assessment Act.
In addition, Saskatchewan challenged the federal carbon pricing program twice in court — first in 2020 on a constitutional basis that was shot down by the Supreme Court, and again in 2024 after the Canada Revenue Agency pursued the province for not remitting carbon levies.
“Fighting forest fires is not necessarily lucrative to the government in terms of filling their coffers with royalties or revenue,” added Eggerman. “I don’t know if that is a factor or not, but this is the current state of the law.”
— with files from Jeremy Simes, Saskatoon StarPhoenix
