Vancouver Aquarium to return to court over city bylaw banning cetaceans

The B.C. Court of Appeal has sent the Vancouver Aquarium back to court in its attempt to quash a bylaw banning whales and dolphins in city parks.

The Vancouver park board passed a bylaw that banned cetaceans being brought to or kept in city parks in May 2017 after two beluga whales died in captivity at the aquarium.

The aquarium, which is in Stanley Park, asked for a judicial review seeking to set aside the bylaw amendment on four grounds, including that the park board’s licence agreement with the facility prevented it from applying the change.

A B.C. Supreme Court judge agreed with the aquarium and declared the bylaw amendment void, but a panel of three Appeal Court judges overturned that ruling in a decision issued Tuesday.

The latest judgment says a municipality cannot weaken its legislative powers in a licence agreement unless expressly authorized by a law, and there’s nothing in the Vancouver Charter that would allow that.

The high court sent the matter back to the B.C. Supreme Court for determination of the aquarium’s other three grounds challenging the bylaw amendment.

The aquarium’s operator, the Ocean Wise Conservation Association, says in a statement that the matters raised by the appeal are of great significance to the facility’s operations.

“We will need to take the time necessary to review the judgment with our legal counsel and consider the implications it may have on our organization before determining our future course of action or making any further public statements about these matters,” the statement says.

The park board said in a statement that along with applicable provincial and federal laws pertaining to cetaceans, it permits and regulates aquarium activities in Stanley Park.

The aquarium announced last year it would no longer house dolphins or whales, but said it was important to continue to pursue the court case because it opposed the park board using a bylaw to alter its licence agreement.