Federal appeal court upholds First Nations victory to protect wildlife at planned nuclear waste site

The Globe and Mail, May 29, 2026, Marie Woolf, Ottawa, https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-federal-appeal-court-upholds-first-nations-protect-wildlife/

A small Quebec First Nation has won a landmark case in the Federal Court of Appeal over a failure to reduce risks to wildlife – including two types of bat and a yellow throated turtle – in planning the location of a nuclear waste storage site near the Ottawa River.

The Federal Court of Appeal on Thursday upheld a decision last year by the Federal Court that ruled in favour of Kebaowek First Nation and local environment advocates.

The ruling may stall plans to build a storage mound at the Chalk River Laboratories site northwest of Ottawa, designed to hold up to one million cubic metres of radioactive low-level nuclear waste. It could also have implications for future legal challenges to building projects, which could threaten local wildlife.

Kebaowek First Nation and local environmentalists in March last year successfully challenged a 2024 decision by then-environment-minister Steven Guilbeault to issue a permit allowing a nuclear waste mound near the Ottawa river to be built, even though it could impact species at risk

The former environment minister issued the species-at-risk permit, allowing Canadian Nuclear Laboratories to press ahead with its plans for the waste site, in spite of potential harm to two types of bats and a turtle with a bright yellow throat.

The permit authorized incidental harm, harassment or killing of the threatened Blanding’s turtle, the endangered little brown bat and endangered Northern long-eared bat.

The Blanding’s turtle, which can live for 80 years in the wild, is known as the turtle “with a sun under its chin” in some Indigenous legends. Its population has been hit by habitat loss, invasive species and development.

The construction of the nuclear waste mound at Chalk River could lead to such turtles being killed on roads, while the habitat where the bats roost and raise their young could also be threatened, Kebaowek First Nation has warned. It fears the development would also harm black bears with dens there, and other wildlife including rare Eastern wolves.

Ole Hendrickson, conservation committee chair with the non-profit Sierra Club Canada Foundation, an environmental group that mounted the challenge alongside the First Nation, said the ruling “will have implications right across Canada, for other threatened habitat.”

“This should send a strong message to the federal government that placing environmental protection in last place after economic interest is not only unacceptable to Canadians, it will cause them trouble in the courts,” he said in a statement.

The Federal Court of Appeal decision comes amid tension over environmental protection, Indigenous rights and major federally backed projects.

On Wednesday, Mr. Guilbeault, a committed environmentalist, announced his resignation from federal politics. Mr. Guilbeault played a key role in many of the previous Liberal government’s climate initiatives which have been diluted, stalled or reversed by the current government. He plans to resign his seat later this summer.

In the judgment issued on Thursday the Federal Court of Appeal questioned Mr. Guilbeault’s decision that Chalk River was the “best solution” for the storage site. To issue a species of risk permit, the minister needed to be of the view that “all reasonable alternatives” had been considered as locations.

Three judges at the Federal Court of Appeal ruled on Thursday that Mr. Guilbeault’s decision to issue a permit was “unreasonable” and in dismissing the appeal by Canadian Nuclear Laboratories said the issue should go back to the current minister for redetermination.

Minister of Environment and Climate Change Julie Dabrusin will now have to reconsider the issuing of a species-at-risk permit, and whether there could be other viable locations for the site with fewer impacts on wildlife. CNL, which plans to build and operate the proposed waste dump, had looked at other locations owned by the Crown corporation Atomic Energy of Canada, but chose Chalk River.

Chief Lance Haymond of Kebaowek First Nation said “the Federal Court of Appeal has confirmed that Environment Canada must go back and do its job properly.”

Nicholas Pope, the Ottawa lawyer who represented Kebaowek First Nation, said there are alternative sites that could have been considered, including federal land near Chalk River that would have not posed as great a threat to species at risk.

He hoped Ms. Dabrusin in looking again at species at risk would also consider the potential impact on endangered monarch butterflies, and Eastern wolves that roam at the Chalk River site.

In 2024, the federal environment department upgraded the Eastern wolf, found only in Ontario and Quebec, to threatened species status, saying there may be as few as 236 adults in Canada.

Cecelia Parsons, spokesperson for Environment and Climate Change Canada, said it is reviewing the court of appeal decision “and its implications carefully and will determine next steps as appropriate.”

CNL said it had sought “to obtain clarity in a complex regulatory environment” in going to the Federal Court of Appeal.

“CNL respects the decision of the court and is now taking time to evaluate today’s decision and determine next steps,” it said in a statement. “CNL remains committed to protecting the environment and species at-risk – restoration and protection of the environment is at the core of our work.”

Last year, the federal court partly granted Kebaowek’s application for judicial review of the decision to build the Chalk River waste dump on the grounds that it was not properly consulted. This decision is now before the Federal Court of Appeal.