Youth-led climate trial begins in federal court in Vancouver

VANCOUVER – The first youth-led climate trial in Canadian history has begun at the federal courthouse in downtown Vancouver, where 15 plaintiffs are arguing that federal legislation violates their constitutional rights by continuing the trajectory of greenhouse gas emissions.

Catherine Boies Parker, who is representing the youth plaintiffs, says in her opening statement that the case is not about the existence of climate change but rather whether the government is “constitutionally required to stop making it worse.”

She says the Charter must provide youth a “degree of protection from their own government’s actions” that she says are contributing to the “greatest threat to personal security that humans have ever faced.”

Boies Parker says she’s anticipating the government will say it can’t fix climate change on its own, but she says it can make it better or worse.

She says Canada has been aware of the impacts of climate change as far back as 1988, and has “repeatedly recognized” the dangers of greenhouse gases and made commitments to reduce its emissions.

But she says that despite decades of international commitments and legislative promises, Canada has “repeatedly failed to set sufficient targets (and) repeatedly failed to meet those insufficient targets.”

The trial comes about seven years after the case was first filed in 2019.

Bois Parker told the court the impacts of climate change have intensified since then, citing the 2021 heat dome in B.C., Canada’s record-breaking 2023 wildfire season, flooding and other extreme weather events that she says “have caused physical and psychological harm.”

She says the court will hear directly from the youth as well as expert witnesses on issues such as climate science, children’s health, renewable energy, economics and Indigenous knowledge.

The trial is expected to continue into late November, with closing arguments scheduled for February.

The 15 youth are from seven provinces and two territories and are expected to testify on how they have suffered “specific harms connected directly to the government’s conduct.”

Bois Parker says those harms include respiratory illness worsened by wildfire smoke, displacement due to extreme weather, mental health impacts including climate anxiety and loss of cultural connections to the land lost due to climate disasters.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 26, 2026.