VANCOUVER—In the three years since the Volkswagen emissions-cheating scandal was uncovered, governments in the U.S., Germany and elsewhere have fined the company billions of dollars and sent some of its top executives to jail for breaking environmental laws — but not in Canada.“There has been nothing done,” said David Boyd, the United Nations’ newly appointed human rights and environment watchdog.Boyd, who is also an expert in environmental law at the University of British Columbia, is concerned the Volkswagen scandal is on its way to becoming another example of Canada’s “absolutely scandalous” failure to enforce environmental laws.“There has not been any indication that Volkswagen’s going to be held responsible for their environmental crimes here,” he said.“It’s pretty alarming,” said Tim Gray, executive director of Environmental Defence. It was “a massive scandal perpetrated on the public.”While federal Environment Minister Catherine McKenna said she is hopeful there will be progress on the case soon, the Canadian investigation into the emissions-cheating scandal remains ongoing three years in.“The legal and regulatory environments vary between Canada and the U.S., and a court settlement and fines in the U.S. are not simply replicated in Canada,” said department spokesperson Gabrielle Lamontagne.“Volkswagen Group Canada Inc. . . . has not publicly admitted to being guilty of an alleged offence in Canada,” she said, adding that the company in Canada is a separate legal entity from its parent company in Germany and affiliates in the U.S., where Volkswagen has already paid significant fines.The scandal became public in 2015 — roughly a month before the Liberal government came to power in Ottawa. Volkswagen and subsidiaries Audi and Porsche had been caught selling roughly 11 million diesel cars worldwide that were fitted with a “defea ...
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