Thursday, August 21, 2014 It’s been a busy few months with a lot of new challenges and developments regarding the Enbridge and Kinder Morgan pipelines and tankers proposals. We thought we’d take a step back to give an update on some of the major legal developments. It’s worth flagging that,
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Environmental Law Alert Blog: Field notes from the Salish Sea Summer Gathering
Wednesday, August 20, 2014 This year marked the Third Annual Salish Sea Summer Gathering in Whey-ah Wichen/Cates Park in North Vancouver, hosted by the Tsleil Waututh Nation Sacred Trust. West Coast Environmental Law was pleased to be a part of the day and be a sponsor of this event. Held
Continue readingEnvironmental Law Alert Blog: British Columbians using the law to fight back and protect their environment
Wednesday, August 20, 2014 One of West Coast Environmental Law’s services is to operate the Environmental Dispute Resolution Fund (EDRF). The EDRF is funded by the Law Foundation of BC, and is a granting program for citizens and communities who need to access legal help to solve an environmental dispute. We are
Continue readingEnvironmental Law Alert Blog: Environmental regulation: better than a pound of cure
Wednesday, August 13, 2014 This post was originally posted on envirolawsmatter.ca. ‘Streamlining environmental regulatory review’ and ‘reducing the regulatory burden on industry’ are among the hottest buzzwords from the federal and BC provincial governments. As the Mt. Polley Mine tailings lake breach that occurred on Monday, August 4 demonstrates, however,
Continue readingEnvironmental Law Alert Blog: The Summer Law Student Volunteer Team says “Goodbye”
Wednesday, August 13, 2014 The West Coast Environmental Law summer law student volunteers want to thank our amazing mentors at West Coast Environmental Law for the wonderful educational experiences they provided this summer. We have laughed and learned with the West Coast staff and, to wrap up our work term,
Continue readingEnvironmental Law Alert Blog: See you in court, Enbridge! First Nations launch legal challenges to Enbridge pipelines and tankers project
Friday, July 18, 2014 In a wave of legal filings on July 11 and July 14, 2014, eight First Nations from Haida Gwaii to Yinka Dene territory west of Prince George set in motion legal proceedings that, combined with 9 court cases filed earlier this year, have the potential to
Continue readingEnvironmental Law Alert Blog: Field notes on the Hupacasath legal challenge to the Canada-China FIPA: WCEL summer law student volunteer reports from the Federal Court of Appeal
Wednesday, June 18, 2014 On the morning of June 10, 2014, as my first investigative assignment as a law student volunteer working with West Coast Environmental Law, I was sent to the Federal Court of Appeal on the corner of the busy Georgia and Granville streets to observe an appeal
Continue readingEnvironmental Law Alert Blog: Logging rights consultation fails to ask the big questions
Wednesday, May 21, 2014 The provincial government’s current “Area Based Forest Tenure Consultation”, which ends on May 30, 2014 is about large-scale logging interests and how much control they should have over BC’s forests. It fails to ask the big questions: Who should be managing BC’s forests and for what
Continue readingEnvironmental Law Alert Blog: Investors ask: Is the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline becoming the new Keystone?
Wednesday, May 21, 2014 Investors are asking whether Kinder Morgan's Transmountain Pipeline could become the next Keystone, after Kinder Morgan’s statements about oil spills being good for the economy went viral. Increasingly it is becoming clear that this project is not inevitable, and the National Energy Board's review process is
Continue readingEnvironmental Law Alert Blog: Notes from the Salish Sea Conference, Seattle, April 30-May 2, 2014
Wednesday, May 21, 2014 Every two years the Salish Sea Conference brings together scientists, First Nations and tribal government representatives, resource managers, community/business leaders, policy makers, educators and students, and even the occasional environmental lawyer, to share the latest research on protecting and restoring the Salish Sea ecosystem. This year
Continue readingEnvironmental Law Alert Blog: Take Action: Say no to pipelines in our parks!
Friday, April 11, 2014 We’ve just learned that Kinder Morgan has received an illegal park use permit from the BC government to allow it to research pipeline routes through 5 of BC’s parks and protected areas. And rather than recognizing that parks should be off-limits to pipelines, the BC government
Continue readingEnvironmental Law Alert Blog: Widening (even further) the hole in federal fish protection: Canada’s proposed Fisheries Act Regulations
Wednesday, March 19, 2014 British Columbians are no strangers to environmental deregulation. The early aughts, which for decades prior were heralded as likely to usher in electric cars and other signs of eco-enlightenment, instead saw a thorough dismantling of the province’s environmental regime, with the BC government repealing or weakening
Continue readingEnvironmental Law Alert Blog: Do you #twtmoot? Bringing legal argument into the 21st Century
Friday, March 14, 2014 Some of our readers may have missed Twitter Moot 2014, held on Friday, February 28th, in Victoria, Edmonton, Thunder Bay, Toronto and Halifax – as well as globally on Twitter. If you missed it and are kicking yourself, you can re-live all the action on our
Continue readingEnvironmental Law Alert Blog: The strengths and weaknesses of the new Water Sustainability Act
Friday, March 14, 2014 The BC Government introduced its long-promised Water Sustainability Act in the BC Legislature on Tuesday. As we said when the government started its last round of public consultation on the proposed Act: Water, and how we treat our water, is one of those fundamental issues that
Continue readingEnvironmental Law Alert Blog: "Not In Your Breadbasket"
Friday, January 17, 2014 Finding consensus among British Columbians on the controversial Site C dam that BC Hydro is seeking to build on the Peace River is challenging. But one thing that can’t be disputed is our need of food. Call it a universal truth: we need to eat. And
Continue readingEnvironmental Law Alert Blog: West Coast and others pledge to hold the wall of opposition to Enbridge
Wednesday, December 18, 2013 On Thursday, December 5, 2013, members of the Yinka Dene Alliance, a group of six First Nations in northern BC who have banned the Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipelines from their territories, held an anniversary celebration for the Save the Fraser Declaration in Vancouver. The anniversary consisted
Continue readingEnvironmental Law Alert Blog: Tsleil-Waututh to Kinder Morgan: Kwel hoy’, (“we draw the line”)
Friday, October 18, 2013 As anyone who has worked in environmental or social justice knows, sometimes change takes a very, very long time, somewhat like a glacier carving out a valley. Little, incremental changes take place that you don’t notice at the time, but that add up to earth-shattering differences
Continue readingEnvironmental Law Alert Blog: Mining the Family Farm
Monday, September 9, 2013 BC’s archaic mining laws have a real cost for BC communities, their environment and their economies. This blog post is the first in a series that highlights the stories of a wide variety of people and places in BC that have felt first-hand the negative impacts
Continue readingEnvironmental Law Alert Blog: Standing Up for Nature and Democracy in Federal Court
Thursday, August 15, 2013 This week, the latest chapter in Canada’s David and Goliath struggle between citizens and Big Oil unfolded as a BC non-profit organization, Forest Ethics Advocacy, launched a constitutional challenge to new requirements in the National Energy Board Act that have the effect of silencing citizens concerned
Continue readingEnvironmental Law Alert Blog: Guest post: The Beaver Lake Cree Judgment: The Most Important Tar Sands Case You’ve Never Heard Of
Wednesday, May 29, 2013 This is a guest post from Carol Linnitt, and was originally published on DeSmog Blog. To see the original post, click here. Sure they’re bad for the environment, for human health, and for wildlife, but we rarely stop to wonder if the Alberta tar sands are
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