Environmental Law Alert Blog

Through our Environmental Law Alert blog, West Coast keeps you up to date on the latest developments and issues in environmental law. This includes:

  • proposed changes to the law that will weaken, or strengthen, environmental protection;
  • stories and situations where existing environmental laws are failing to protect the environment; and
  • emerging legal strategies that could be used to protect our environment.

If you have an environmental story that we should hear about, please e-mail Andrew Gage. We welcome your comments on any of the posts to this blog – but please keep in mind our policies on comments.

2020 Canadian Law Blog Awards Winner

As summer draws to a close, West Coast is saying goodbye to another cohort of dedicated summer law students who have contributed to our legal programs over the past few months. Each year we host a new group of lawyers-to-be, who assist greatly with legal research, developing educational resources, legal aid support and more.

The latest cabinet approval of the Trans Mountain pipeline came less than a day after the federal government declared a climate emergency.

This is a guest post by Kathleen Ruff, Director of RightOnCanada.ca. With support from our Environmental Dispute Resolution Fund (EDRF), Kathleen sought a legal opinion to determine whether Canada’s refusal to bring back Canadian wastes exported to the Philippines violated international law.

May 3rd, 2019 was a great day for climate action.

Help is on the way for some endangered southern mountain caribou. There are two plans under development to save this threatened species, and the BC government is consulting with the public about these plans.

With children striking from school to protect their future, and the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warning that we have just over ten years left to keep climate change to 1.5 degrees, many of you have asked us at the Environmental Dispute Resolution Fund (EDRF) what we are doing to support climate litigation.

For over 14,000 years, the Haíɫzaqv (Heiltsuk) Nation has thrived on the abundance of the lands and waters in what is now known as the central coast of British Columbia.

The world watched last week as an armed RCMP force entered Wet’suwet’en territory without their consent and arrested 14 people.

Sometimes the little guy gets a clear win.

As 2018 comes to a close, the West Coast team wanted to share our victories and milestones with our “Year in Review”