Syncrude — $3 Million Creative Sentence

On October 22, 2010, the Provincial Court of Alberta sentenced Syncrude Canada Ltd to pay $3,000,000 ( click here to read the decision).

As we reported earlier, on June 25, 2010 Syncrude Canada Ltd. was found guilty on two charges arising out of the death of approximately 1,600 ducks in its settling pond in Northern Alberta.1 The charges were brought pursuant to Alberta's Environmental Protection and Enhancement Act (EPEA) and Canada's Migratory Birds Convention Act (MBCA).2 Both the EPEA and the MBCA provide statutory "due diligence" defences.3 Syncrude raised a number of additional defences including an act of God, abuse of process and officially induced error.

While Syncrude's sentence is not the largest penalty ever imposed in Canada for an environmental offence, it is clearly at the upper end of the range and follows the trend toward higher penalties and the increased use of creative sentencing for environmental offences.

The $3,000,000 total penalty approved by the court, on a joint submission by the Crown and Syncrude, is made up of the following:

Fin...