"We find ourselves having to continue to go back to court to force the government to follow some fairly clear language in the act," Devon Page of Ecojustice stated outside the court.

Shortcomings emerged in this Federal Court case. For example, the ministries did not provide recovery strategies after all four species were listed under SARA, and missed formal deadlines by up to six and a half years. Additionally, recovery strategies or management plans are at present required for 192 species, of these 163 are overdue. Particularly relevant is that many overdue recovery plans have an impact on the review of the controversial Northern Gateway Pipeline.

The government did not challenge the evidence presented in court, the judgment did state, "they do deny that recovery strategies have been intentionally delayed in order to facilitate industrial development." There is no penalty for the government departments failing to meet deadlines under SARA. The court did grant $22,500 to each of the five environmental organizations (Wilderness Committee, Sierra Club, David Suzuki Foundation, Wildsight, Greenpeace) that filed the suit through Ecojustice.