Decision Date: December 6, 1994

Court: S.C.B.C., MacKinnon, J.

Cite: Vancouver Registry No. A943008

Lake Windermere Resorts Ltd. (the “petitioner”) applied for judicial review to have a stay order issued by the Board under the Water Act quashed, even though the Board subsequently vacated the order.

The petitioner maintained that the order should be quashed in order to prevent an appeal of the approval which was subject to the stay to the Comptroller of Water Rights. The Court held that proceeding with the petition simply to curtail the possible right to appeal would be improper because it would be directing the Comptroller how to hear the appeal before it had even taken place. In effect, the Court would be subjecting the Comptroller to judicial review before he had even taken any action to be reviewed. The Court declined to exercise its supervisory powers to review the conduct of the Board in granting the stay order holding that when the order was vacated any findings of fact or law would no longer have any force nor effect and therefore would not be available for judicial review. The Court found that the Board’s actions in granting a stay order and then vacating that order did not set a “bad precedent” or indicate that the Board could “not be trusted in the future” as alleged by the petitioner. The Court therefore found no grounds to support the review of the Board’s order which had been vacated. The petition for judicial review was dismissed.