## Facts

- Crown Zellerbach Canada Ltd., a forest products company in British Columbia, dumped woodwaste into Beaver Cove during logging operations.
- Beaver Cove is navigable tidal water within British Columbia that connects to broader marine waters leading to the Pacific Ocean.
- The company was charged under § 4(1) of the Ocean Dumping Control Act, which prohibited dumping “at sea” without a permit; “sea” included Canadian internal waters other than fresh waters.
- Crown Zellerbach had an ocean dumping permit, but it did not authorize dumping at Beaver Cove.
- There was no evidence that the woodwaste dispersed or affected navigation or marine life.
- The trial court dismissed the charge as beyond federal legislative competence as applied to dumping in intra-provincial marine waters; the provincial appellate court affirmed.
- The Supreme Court of Canada granted the Crown’s appeal.

## Issues

1. Whether Parliament may prohibit dumping “at sea” in provincial marine waters under the “peace, order, and good government” power, specifically the national concern doctrine.
2. Whether the provision could instead be upheld under another federal head of power (notably the fisheries power), or whether it unconstitutionally intrudes on provincial jurisdiction over property and civil rights and local matters.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court of Canada, by a 5–2 majority, allowed the appeal and upheld § 4(1) as applied to dumping in provincial marine waters other than fresh waters.
- The majority characterized the law’s dominant purpose as controlling marine pollution caused by dumping at sea, not merely protecting fisheries.
- The Court held the fisheries power was insufficient to support the provision’s full scope.
- The Court upheld the law under POGG’s national concern doctrine, defining the matter as “marine pollution by dumping of substances at sea,” including relevant provincial marine waters.
- The dissent would have found the matter insufficiently distinct from provincial concerns and warned that the approach risked shifting broad environmental regulation to exclusive federal control.

## Legal Principles

- POGG includes a national concern branch (permanent) distinct from a national emergency branch (temporary).
- A matter qualifies under national concern when it has “singleness, distinctiveness and indivisibility” that clearly distinguishes it from matters of provincial concern.
- The “provincial inability” test supports national concern classification where provinces cannot effectively address the problem individually, or where a province’s failure to cooperate would cause serious extra-provincial consequences.
- Once a matter is classified as of national concern, Parliament gains exclusive, plenary jurisdiction over it, including its intra-provincial aspects, so long as the matter is defined with sufficient precision.
- “Marine pollution by dumping at sea” may be treated as distinct from pollution of fresh waters and from general local pollution control, supporting exclusive federal regulation of ocean dumping in both federal and provincial marine waters (other than fresh waters).

## Conclusion

The Court upheld a federal prohibition on ocean dumping as applied to provincial tidal waters, holding that marine pollution from dumping at sea is a distinct, indivisible matter of national concern under POGG, justifying exclusive federal legislative authority despite intra-provincial impacts.


R. v. Crown Zellerbach Canada Ltd., [1988] 1 S.C.R. 401 (Can.)