In the coming days, BC Premier John Horgan will appoint his cabinet.
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.
Ignorance is bliss, they say. While this may be true for some things, British Columbia should not be feeling that way about the deterioration of our coastal ecosystems.
Indigenous peoples, including the Mi’kmaq, have been on Turtle Island for millennia, living in complex societies, sustainably governing their territories and ‘resources’, including fisheries.
What a strange year 2020 has been. We are grateful to our supporters who have been able to continue supporting our work as we all come together (by staying apart!) to prevent the spread of COVID-19.
Working together to raise money for charities is one of the ways we, as colleagues, can give back our communities.
With just over a week to go until election day, are you reading the election platforms of BC’s main parties?
British Columbia is in the middle of an election and the three main parties have recently released their election platforms (NDP,
As Canada’s Parliament returns to session this fall, we must make sure that a green and just recovery is the government’s top priority. We don’t have a moment to lose – big polluters have been busy lobbying for bailouts and exemptions from environmental rules.
As a record low number of sockeye salmon are returning to the Fraser River and First Nations leaders are calling for an emergency closure of the fishery, concern about the health of the Fraser River watershed has likely never been higher. So, it was good to see the BC Supreme Court recently uphold Fisheries Act convictions and fines against the University of British Columbia (UBC) stemming from a 2014 incident in which ammonia from Thunderbird Arena was discharged into the Fraser River watershed, killing at least 70 fish.
Summer 2020 has been intense, to say the least – but luckily this summer we've had a group of dedicated law students to energize and inspire our work at West Coast.
It’s been encouraging to see reports that three federal ministers have been leading internal discussions about “green” COVID-19 stimulus funding for infrastructure: the Minister of Infrastructure and Communities, the Minister of the Environment and Climate Change, and the Minister of Canadian Heritage.
Three is nice, but four would be better. Wouldn’t it be great to see the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO), the Honourable Bernadette Jordan, at the table?