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

 

Today, April 22, we celebrate Earth Day, the day of action that started in 1970 and helped launch the environmental movement. 

Environment & Climate Change Minister Catherine McKenna with EA Review Expert Panel Chair Johanne Gélinas (Photo: Anna Johnston).

In an earlier post we compared the BC Liberal and BC NDP Climate plans in advance of the upcoming election.  At the time the BC Green Party had not released its climate plan. 

The Liberal Party of Canada was elected in part on the basis of a promise to restore lost environmental protections – including reviewing the “elimination of the Navigable Waters Protection Act” in order to “restore lost protections and incorporate more modern safeguards.”  On March 23rd the Parliamentary Standi

Back in December we blogged that it was worth taking a moment to celebrate and reflect on the final rejection of the long-beleaguered Enbridge Northern Gateway project, even though it was announced simultaneously with the federal approval of Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain pr

Revelations about the amount of corporate money coming to the BC Liberals have many people asking: what are these companies getting in return? It's important to recognize that large corporate donations may be aimed at achieving a more sympathetic regulatory environment – one in which a failure to comply with BC's environmental laws may not result in major consequences.

This column was originally published on Slaw – Canada's online legal magazine.

Many of us feel some pressure, or even guilt, about our environmental footprint and our role in creating climate change. West Coast's Anjali Appadurai breaks down this common narrative and points to the need to hold Big Oil accountable for the much bigger part it has played in creating and perpetuating the climate crisis.

It’s been a while since we’ve updated you about Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain pipeline and tanker expansion project (KMX). A lot has happened in the past few months, so here’s a snapshot of where we’re at:

Political approvals

Fish across Canada breathed a sigh of relief when they saw the top recommendation from the Parliamentary Committee on Fisheries and Oceans’ report reviewing the Fisheries Act: to reinstate