Jennifer L. King
Jennifer King is a partner in Gowling WLG’s Environmental Law Group with a national practice in environmental law and its intersections with Indigenous, constitutional, municipal, land use planning, and regulatory law.
Jennifer is a member of the firm’s Canada North, Indigenous, Advocacy, Energy Sector, and Municipal Law Groups, and serves on the firm’s Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) leadership team. She is called to the bar in Ontario and Nunavut.
Jennifer provides strategic regulatory advice and representation on matters including environmental impact assessments, natural resource development, major infrastructure projects, and endangered species approvals, including in Canada’s near and far north.
She represents clients before all levels of Ontario courts and the Supreme Court of Canada, and regularly appears before tribunals including the Local Planning Appeals Tribunal and Institutions of Public Government such as the Nunavut Impact Review Board and Nunavut Water Board. In her constitutional law practice, Jennifer advises clients on issues related to division of powers, including in the areas of climate change, municipal law and transportation.
Jennifer finds creative and pragmatic solutions to complex legal and environmental problems for clients including public entities, Indigenous groups, and private companies. Some of her current work includes:
- Advising a group of municipalities on a federal environmental assessment of a proposed major private sector intermodal transportation facility. Jennifer was co-lead counsel on the federal panel review hearing involving multiple experts including transportation, traffic, air quality, health, and species at risk
- Representing an intervener in the provincial references regarding the constitutionality of the federal Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act. Jennifer appeared before the Ontario and Saskatchewan Courts of Appeal, which both upheld the Act. She appeared at the Supreme Court of Canada on the provinces’ appeals. In March 2021, the Supreme Court released its decision, with the majority confirming that the federal carbon pricing backstop is constitutional
In 2020, Jennifer was named a Leading Lawyer to Watch in environmental law by Lexpert, and was elected as an executive to the Ontario Bar Association’s Environmental Law Section.
Regularly invited to speak on a wide range of topics, Jennifer is an authority on climate governance with the Canada Climate Law Initiative. She also served on the advisory board of Osgoode PD’s ESG Climate Law Certificate.
Jennifer acts as chair of Gowling WLG’s Canadian Equity, Diversity & Inclusion Council’s Recruitment and Retention Committee. She is a member of the Federation of Asian Canadian Lawyers. For more than 10 years, she has served on the boards of local neighbourhood centres, helping to provide a range of community and social services.
Jennifer currently sits on the board of the Eastview Neighbourhood Community Centre, a charitable multi-service neighbourhood centre that offers a broad range of recreational, social, and capacity-building programs to residents in Toronto's east end.