source: West Coast Environmental Law Alert

It’s been almost a year since Natural Resources Minister, Joe Oliver, attacked Canadian environmental groups in an open letter as “radicals”.  Lots has been said since then about the Minister’s inflammatory rhetoric, but very little has been said about this statement:

Finally, if all other avenues have failed, [environmental and other radical groups] will take a quintessential American approach:  sue everyone and anyone to delay the project even further. They do this because they know it can work.  It works because it helps them to achieve their ultimate objective: delay a project to the point it becomes economically unviable.

This statement, like so much of the Minister’s Open Letter, has little basis in reality.  Our experience, as environmental lawyers, is that Canadian environmental organizations (including the groups he’s implicitly taking aim at) have been far less likely to go to court than their U.S. counterparts.

source: WWF-Canada Blog

The changes to the Fisheries Act and new regulations made under it, will have implications for the health of rivers and lakes across the Canada – not just for fish – but for all species, including us humans, who all depend on safe, healthy waters. Fish can’t speak out, but you can.

On June 27, 2012, in the wake of Bill C-38, Minister of Fisheries and Oceans Keith Ashfield announced a “nationwide public engagement and consultations process to be held throughout the summer and fall to develop the policy and regulatory framework that will support changes to the Fisheries Act adopted by the House of Commons earlier this month.” Background documents supporting this announcement state: “Through Summer and Fall 2012, the Department will engage Canadians, through a series of roundtables and meetings, and online, to get their feedback on various elements of the Government of Canada’s fisheries protection approach.”

source: West Coast's Environmental Law Alert. Also posted by Alternatives Journal

“This is your future, you tell me what you want me to know about all this.” – Justice Tom Berger

Living Democracy from the Ground Up is a mini-documentary series produced by West Coast Environmental Law that takes an up close and personal look and the impacts that individuals could feel on the ground from rollbacks to our environmental laws. The stories in the series demonstrate how robust and participatory environmental assessment is important to real people and communities and how consulting local people in the process leads to better projects. As Justice Thomas Berger says in Part 3 of the series, “that’s a lesson in democracy.”

source: Ecojustice

By Kimberly Shearon, Ecojustice Communications Coordinator

When the federal government tabled Bill C-45, its second omnibus bill of the year, it took aim at another long-standing environmental law: the Navigable Waters Protection Act.

While the law has, on occasion, delayed minor projects like small docks or footbridges, the tabled amendments go far beyond reducing red tape for efficiency’s sake.

Proposed changes include changing the name of the law to the Navigable Protection Act (NPA), dropping "Waters" from the title altogether. And indeed, under the proposed changes, Canada's waterways will have significantly less protection:

source: West Coast Environmental Law Alert

Jay Nelson has a unique perspective on the new Canadian Environmental Assessment act, 2012 (CEAA 2012).  Jay has been representing the Tsilhqot’in National Government (TNG) in the current environmental assessment (EA) of the controversial New Prosperity mine project at Fish Lake (Teztan Biny) in BC’s Chilcotin Region, and so has been grappling with how CEAA 2012 works on the ground.

Last month, Jay joined West Coast lawyer Rachel Forbes in presenting a webinar on the new CEAA 2012 (part of our series of Continuing Professional Development webinars for public interest environmental lawyers), and he shared his insights on how EA is changing in Canada, both generally and as a result of CEAA 2012. 

Jay’s presentation was wide ranging and below we have shared a few of his insights, together with some of our own comments. Due to length, we aren’t reporting on all of the very important points made by Jay during the webinar; we have chosen to focus on the points related to how an environmental assessment run by the federal government will work under CEAA 2012. 

source: West Coast Environmental Law Environmental Law Alert

The final report of the Commission of Inquiry into the Decline of Sockeye Salmon in the Fraser River was released on October 31st, contrary to rumours that the document might not be made public.  The report, while not finding any single cause of declining Fraser River sockeye, made 75 recommendations about how Canada could better protect salmon in British Columbia.  Many of them stand in direct contrast to recent cuts to Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) scientists and other staff and weakening of the Fisheries Act.

What is the Cohen Commission?

In 2009, Prime Minister Harper appointed Justice Bruce Cohen, a BC Supreme Court Justice, to look into the decline of Fraser River sockeye. This inquiry was prompted after only 1.4 out of the expected 10 million adult sockeye returned to their spawning grounds in the Fraser watershed, prompting a closure of the commercial sockeye fishery for the third year in a row.

Over the past three years, Commissioner Cohen carefully gathered and reviewed
evidence for his final report, which he submitted to Parliament on Monday.

source: West Coast Environmental Law Alert

As public interest environmental lawyers, we think that it’s important for BC and Canada to have strong environmental laws.  And, at least when asked in polls, a large majority of Canadians agree.

The trouble is, when you start talking about different models of environmental assessment, or the legal definition of “critical habitat”, most people’s eyes just glaze over.  Sometimes we feel challenged to explain – in plain English – why these technical words make a difference to our clean water and air and healthy wildlife. 

So it’s always great when comedians weigh in about environmental law issues – explaining the significance of these critical issues, in a way that doesn’t seem too technical, isn’t too much of a downer and may actually make people smile.  Even though the issues are serious, and sometimes sad, even environmental lawyers can use a chuckle. 

West Coast Environmental Law Association, along with a great many other Canadians, is disappointed that Bill C-38, the Budget Implementation Act, with its various attacks on Canada’s environment and the laws that protect it, has passed the House of Commons. With the Bill before the Senate, Members of Parliament (MPs) have gone home from Ottawa, where they will doubtless receive a warm welcome from their constituents, as well as questions about the Budget and why significant changes to so many of Canada’s environmental laws were buried in it. 

Here are our top questions that we’d like to suggest you ask your MP on their return home.  You can find your MP’s contact information here.

Have you heard about the Black Out Speak Out campaign?  West Coast Environmental Law is working together with other organizations across the country to let Canadians know that changes proposed for the country's environmental laws will silence laws and voices that speak out for our environment – for clean air, clean water, wild creatures and fish. 

The Black Out Speak Out campaign wants to mobilize concerned citizens, businesses and organizations across the country to speak out for Canadian democracy and our environment on June 4th.  Our websites will be going black for a day as a symbolic start of a major online campaign to empower Canadians to speak out for democracy and nature. Working together, we’ll be speaking out for as long as it takes. Join us in working for stronger environmental laws, not gutted ones, and help us spread the word.

source: West Coast Environmental Law Environmental Law Alert

May 3, 2012

We’ve been clear that the roll-back of Canada’s environmental laws – legal environmental protection that Canadians have worked for decades to put in place – can only benefit the oil and gas, mining and other big industrial players, at the expense of our communities and the environment. 

By gutting Canada’s long-standing environmental laws, the budget bill gives big oil and gas companies what they’ve been asking for – fewer environmental safeguards so they can push through resource megaprojects with little regard to environmental damage.  It is Canadians and our children who will pay the cost.