It's about environmental clean-up. By all rights, the cost of resource extraction should be borne by the user of the product, and that includes the cost of fixing any environmental damage that has been done. Here's a story of how a company (and its customers, of course) can walk away and let the public purse pick up the cost.
From
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/poli ... an-up-caseQuote:
Supreme Court rules against Nfld. in AbitibiBowater clean-up case
The Canadian Press
OTTAWA—The Supreme Court of Canada has ruled against the government of Newfoundland and Labrador in its effort to force insolvent newsprint giant AbitibiBowater Inc., to pay for an environmental cleanup.
The province wanted the top court to decide if a debtor’s statutory duty to remove environmental contamination is extinguished under Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act.
The Montreal-based company, which now operates as Resolute Forest Products Inc., had filed for bankruptcy protection under the act in 2009.
The province wanted to force the company to clean up five contaminated sites at a cost estimated at between $50 million and $100 million.
The Quebec Court of Appeal earlier refused to hear the province’s appeal against the company.
The Supreme Court ruled 7-2 against the province.