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For six years, residents in a neighbourhood in Shipshaw, Quebec, went through a living hell, an experience that may ultimately prove of relevance here in British Columbia.

A rogue company in the "construction materials disposal" business accepted truckload after truckload of wastes that it was unauthorized to receive. Not only were the trucks, lumbering past local homes, not supposed to be dumping in the neighbourhood, but noxious liquids from the dump site later migrated to surrounding properties, prompting an army of "rats and other vermin" to move in.

These facts are among many contained in a colourful legal overview of a precedent-setting 2004 case in Quebec, a case that may have ramifications elsewhere when human health and the environment are jeopardized due to lax enforcement of provincial hazardous-waste laws.

In particular, it has captured the interest of lawyers here in B.C., where a recent high-profile incident of environmental neglect is leading to the possibility that the province may soon be sued for negligence.

In March, the Georgia Straight reported on an incident bearing similarities to the events in Shipshaw. The story involved an alleged waste-oil treatment facility in Abbotsford where massive quantities of toxic material were delivered. Not only did the company, Canada Petroleum Corporation, not have provincial-government approvals to accept the waste, but millions of litres of flammable, corrosive, and, in some cases, carcinogenic materials moving into the facility apparently never made their way out. If they did, B.C.'s Ministry of Water, Land and Air Protection, which requires companies to report what waste they handle, cannot say where they ended up.

Numerous documents show that public servants were seriously concerned about CPC. They cited the company's poor record-keeping, improper waste-storage methods that resulted in an explosion and fire, toxic wastes leaching into the Fraser River's floodplain, and evidence of hazardous liquids being pumped into Abbotsford's sewer system. Only after CPC was forced to vacate the warehouse last fall after failing to make a lease payment did the ministry belatedly lay charges against the company.

All of this takes on significance when one considers what transpired in Quebec. As Montreal environmental lawyer Charles Kazaz explained in a March Canadian Bar Association newsletter, Quebec Environment Ministry officials were well aware of problems with one company in Shipshaw.

"Routine inspections by the Ministry almost always turned up violations that included accepting unauthorized waste, neglecting to cover the disposal site, and postponing the filing of financial guarantees with the Ministry."

These events prompted a class-action lawsuit by neighbourhood residents in which the numbered company, the municipality, and the province were named as defendants. In December 2004, the province's highest court, the Quebec Court of Appeal, upheld that the province was partly liable for failing to act "with reasonable vigilance" in ensuring the company complied with environmental laws. Kazaz noted how the court found that "it was only after two-and-a-half years of consistent violations that a Ministry inspector recommended that legal proceedings be taken against the operators." From that point, it took another year-and-a-half before the minister filed documents to revoke the waste handler's permit. Worse yet, once the permit was revoked, the ministry didn't enforce it, and the company continued its illegal actions.

In a telephone interview from Montreal, Kazaz told the Straight that the court's decision is a landmark. "I don't know of any other case where the regulator, the Ministry of Environment, has been held liable for damages for lax enforcement of environmental legislation."

He went on to say that such cases are rare. Even less frequently are successful prosecutions, in part because public servants have wide leeway in how they attempt to get companies to comply with environmental laws. But there are limits to that leeway.

"Regulators for the most part have very good knowledge of the businesses that they have oversight over," Kazaz said. "They know what's going on. They understand what the issues are. So you have to give them a lot of latitude in the way they enforce the legislation. But if it gets to the point where the noncompliance is so egregious-and the Shipshaw case was one of them-there has to be some legal recourse."

Tim Howard, a lawyer at Sierra Legal Defence Fund, said the events in Shipshaw parallel those in Abbotsford, making the Quebec case, known as Attorney General of Quebec vs. Girard et als., of interest.

"What's most interesting about the Girard case was that the court didn't give the government an out for liability," Howard remarked. "The government said: 'We have limited staff resources, and we have to make decisions about where to allocate them. We can't be held responsible for decisions about where we allocate scarce staff. We have a lot of demands on our time.' And the court said that is not a defence. You knew for approximately three years that this facility was not operating in compliance with the standards. You had all the knowledge at hand and you failed to act."

Although provincial governments are rarely found liable in such cases, there is precedence in B.C. One of the more interesting instances arose out of a 1989 Supreme Court of Canada decision known as the Just case. The Just case dates back to January 1982, when John Just and his daughter, en route to skiing at Whistler, found themselves sitting in a line of backed-up cars on Highway 99. On the wooded slopes above them, a giant boulder broke loose and crashed down on their car. Just's daughter was killed; he suffered serious injuries. Just sued the province, saying that the Ministry of Transportation and Highways' rock-scaling crew had failed to maintain the highway properly.

B.C.'s attorney general successfully argued before the province's Supreme Court and, later, the B.C. Court of Appeal that the crew had "absolute discretion" in the standards it set and how it enforced them. Furthermore, he noted that the province could not be held liable for the policy choices it made. The courts agreed and, as a result, never even considered whether or not the system of inspections adequately safeguarded the public interest.

The Supreme Court of Canada decided differently. Its reasons turned on the fine distinction between policy and operational decisions. In arriving at its decision, the court used a hypothetical example of a government policy decision to increase air safety by building more airports. To meet that policy objective, it diverted funds from lighthouse inspections. Fewer lighthouse inspections resulted in a beacon going out and a shipwreck ensuing, but no government agency could be found liable because the outcome resulted from a policy decision.

"On the other hand, if a decision is made to inspect lighthouses facilities," the court noted, "the system of inspections must be reasonable and they must be made properly."

Ultimately, the court ruled that since the province made an operational decision to inspect steep slopes to ensure public safety, then the manner and frequency with which it carried out such inspections could be questioned. The Supreme Court ordered a new trial, saying the courts in B.C. would have to determine whether the "requisite standard of care" was taken in the days leading up to Just's fateful Whistler trip. As the Supreme Court of B.C. later ruled, the answer was no. Just was awarded almost $1 million in compensation.

Andrew Gage, a lawyer at West Coast Environmental Law Association, says the Just case raises interesting questions, particularly in the context of the events in Abbotsford. Clearly, some important operational decisions have been made on the part of the Ministry of Water, Land and Air Protection when it comes to hazardous wastes. One is that the government will maintain and continually update a database of waste shipments in the province. In the Abbotsford case, the database revealed gaping holes in the reporting of toxic wastes moving in and out of CPC's warehouse. The other operational decision is to inspect waste facilities to ensure that they comply with all the relevant rules and regulations. Many such inspections occurred at CPC. Numerous problems were noted.

Whether or not this could translate into a legal action against the province is another matter, however.

Craig Jones is a lawyer in Vancouver and coauthor along with Jamie Cassels of The Law of Large-Scale Claims. Among other things, the book explores "toxic torts" and other legal actions that arise in response to large-scale environmental disasters on a par with the Exxon Valdez oil spill.

Suing governments for regulatory negligence is, in Jones's words, "a blossoming area of law".

However, he said, anyone initiating such a suit faces an uphill battle. In Abbotsford, for example, the owner of the warehouse CPC operated out of is still legally on the hook to clean it up.

That man is Sev Samulski. His company is Tristar Brick and Block. The preliminary cost he faces to clean up CPC's mess is $600,000 and may well prove to be higher. First, an estimated 1,500 barrels of toxic waste, much of it unlabelled and requiring testing, must be removed. Then there's the whole question of contaminated soils. The more extensive the contamination, the higher the cleanup costs.

"The owner is in a difficult spot here because the legislation puts the onus on him. There's a statutory liability there," Jones said. However, he added that "it would not be a surprise" to see the owner sue the government in an attempt to recover some of the costs on the grounds that the pollution was caused, at least in part, by a lack of government action.

At Sierra Legal, Howard also said that it would not be a surprise if such a suit materialized. Furthermore, he said, it may be precisely what's needed to revitalize the province's environmental-protection program, which has faced serious challenges over a decade of funding and budget cuts.

"Frankly, a lawsuit is what's needed to get the government to wake up and recognize that it can't just keep cutting environmental- and public-health protection staff," Howard said.

After a lengthy and perhaps precedent-setting case in Quebec, a growing number of lawyers are awake to new possibilities. And when lawyers sense "blossoming" areas of opportunity, it has a way of sharpening the senses and raising the stakes for all involved, government included.