Jamie Sarkonak: Don’t celebrate Nova Scotia court’s takedown of the forest ban

A man hikes along a trail at Crystal Crescent Beach on Thursday, Aug. 7, 2025. Photo by Yuan Wong/The Chronicle Herald

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Months after Premier Tim Houston of Nova Scotia locked down the province’s forests, instituting a $25,000 fine on anyone who dared to enter a wooded or boggy area that they did not personally own, he’s received his first review from the courts. It’s poor: the ban on human travel through the “woods,” the Nova Scotia Supreme Court said last Friday, was unreasonable and therefore illegal.

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The result is a win for common sense. The actual reasoning of the court, less so.

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Most people will agree that it’s unfair and overkill to ban people from walking their dogs in the presence of trees to reduce the risk of a wildfire. Or to prohibit farmers from hiring anyone to mend fences in any area that could be called “the bush.” Or to eliminate all hikers from the landscape in fear of light refracting through their water in such a way that it ignites the grass and leaves nearby. This was what Nova Scotia was up against from August to October of 2025, and it was crazy.

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Tourism was harmed (no longer could people hike on beautiful Cape Breton, trail riding operations were called off, etc.) and so were the locals. One man, who cycled to work on trails, told CBC back then that he could no longer commute with ease; another, Jeff Evely, took one for the team by subjecting himself to the massive fine ($28,872 with tax) that could have paid for a new sedan. However, the province wouldn’t fine homeless people in forest camps, which are fire hazards even on a rainy day.

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Alas, Evely took the fine to court, which spawned the decision published last week.

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Instead of challenging the constitutionality of the ban on the basis that it was so broad that it violated his Charter rights, he took the route of judicial review, challenging the reasonableness of the decision to enact it.

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Justice Jamie Campbell declared the ban was unreasonable — because the natural resources minister, back before he banned walks in the woods, didn’t adequately consider how his decision might interact with the Charter rights of those affected. While it wasn’t a constitutional case, the Charter ended up being the deciding factor in a backdoor sort of way.

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“The issue here is not the balancing of community safety and individual rights,” wrote the judge. “It is about the decision-making process.”

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“The travel ban, in preventing people from going into the woods, limited the mobility rights of Nova Scotians to move freely around the province. The Supreme Court of Canada has affirmed that, as a fundamental right protected by s. 6 of the Charter. There was no evidence in the record that when the Minister issued the proclamation there was any consideration given to mobility rights, how the ban could limit those rights and how the ban could be drafted in a way to minimize the limitations on mobility rights.”