CAMPP loses latest bid to scuttle hospital’s chosen County Rd. 42 location

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The group fighting the location for the region’s new megahospital have lost in court yet again, with the presiding judge rebuking their arguments and ordering that they pay $27,500 in City of Windsor and Windsor Regional Hospital legal costs.

“There comes a time when a litigation cause has been lost. It is over,” Justice D.L. Corbett states in a Divisional Court decision released Wednesday, dismissing the latest bid by Citizens for an Accountable Megahospital Planning Process to keep its legal fight alive. This was an application to extend the time limit for seeking a three-judge review of last year’s decision by Ontario Divisional Court Justice Gregory J. Verbeem, who denied CAMPP leave to appeal a 2019 ruling by the province’s Local Planning Appeal Tribunal that also went against CAMPP.

The City of Windsor noted in a news release Wednesday that this latest ruling “marks the third time that the group of opponents to the new hospital’s future location has been ruled against.”

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In his Wednesday decision, Corbett says CAMPP’s legal fight was actually lost when Verbeem denied it leave to appeal last year. CAMPP’s latest move — the time extension — “is an attempt to reopen litigation that is concluded,” he says, dismissing the application and ordering CAMPP to pay the legal costs ($15,000 for the hospital and $12,500 for the City of Windsor) within 30 days.

While this is not the absolute end of the road for CAMPP, it is believed it must decide whether to seek a review on this matter within four days. The Toronto lawyer for CAMPP, Erick Gillespie, was unavailable to comment on Wednesday and longtime CAMPP’s leader Philippa von Ziegenweidt declined comment until after talking to Gillespie. She wouldn’t say whether the organization will continue the legal battle, for which it has fundraised more than $100,000. It’s been fighting the County Road 42 location since it was announced in 2015 and advocating for a location within the city’s core since the megahospital idea was first floated about nine years ago.

“Honestly, I can’t speak to it right now because I still need to talk to our lawyer,” von Ziegenweidt said. The recent order that CAMPP pay $27,500 in legal costs comes on top of the $28,250 that Verbeem ordered CAMPP to pay last year and doesn’t take into account its own legal costs.

While the $2-billion megahospital project is a bid by Windsor Regional to replace its two aged and inadequate campuses with a state-of-the-art hospital on County Road 42, the City of Windsor is part of the legal battle because CAMPP has been challenging the city council-approved zone changes in 2018 for the hospital site. Earlier this spring, the project received a huge shot in the arm when the province included $10 million in funding for Phase 2 planning of the hospital in its 2021 budget.

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Corbett’s ruling, according to Mayor Drew Dilkens, underscores that the city is on the right track and did everything “above board and by the book.” He said he is hoping that CAMPP gives up its legal fight against the location and joins together with everyone else trying to improve health care in the region.

“The judge explicitly states this motion (by CAMPP) is an attempt to continue to reopen litigation that is concluded, so from this judge’s perspective this matter has been decided,” said the mayor.

“I think at some point it’s good for all sides to have certainty that the matter is concluded.”

Hospital CEO David Musyj said the latest decision makes it abundantly clear the community needs to focus on getting the new hospital built.

“We have lost a lot of valuable time when time is of the essence,” he said. “COVID-19 has made it obvious how critically we need a new acute care hospital in Windsor/Essex for our region and province as a whole.”

Referring to how woefully inadequate the current buildings are to treat patients during the pandemic, he said. “We cannot continue to operate a hospital in tarps and temporary venting.”

The decision last year that denied CAMPP leave to appeal can’t be further appealed. So what CAMPP was hoping to challenge were decisions made by Verbeem during the hearing, such as refusing to hear “fresh evidence” on the implications of COVID-19. New evidence is normally not allowed when a party seeks leave to appeal. In his Wednesday ruling, Corbett said there is “no apparent merit” in CAMPP’s arguments for a review.

“The request to adduce ‘fresh evidence’ respecting COVID-19 bordered on the absurd,” the justice said, adding that “no basis was provided to suggest that general principles of public health were not taken into account in siting the new hospital.”

bcross@postmedia.com