Meaningful public participation is a backbone of environmental assessment. Without it, project reviews can become a closed-door rubber stamp, vulnerable to manipulation by proponents, governments, or any stakeholder with an agenda and a seat at the table.
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.
(May 26, 2015 Correction: The reference to PRV as a "disease" in the section marked "The precautionary principle" has been corrected to "disease agent." Thank you to reader John Segal for pointing out the error.)
In the past two weeks, I embarked on something of a radical carbon offset program as one part of the growing mass movement to stop the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain expansion.
Three years ago the Province released a report estimating it would cost $9.5 billion to prepare the Lower Mainland for rising sea levels by 2100. The report focused on “hard” solutions: dikes, sea gates, flood walls.
April 24 Update: We are informed that as a result of allocations for consultations and the Major Projects Management Office in the 2015 federal budget, the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency's budget will total approximately $32 million, which is comparable to recent previous years.
BC will soon lose the dubious distinction of being the “Wild West for groundwater”.
It’s budget season, and federal government departments are releasing reports on their spending for 2014-15 and projections for what they plan to spend in 2015-16.
Last month, Executive Director Jessica Clogg and I traveled to Ft. St.
Were you excited to read our take on the supposed visionary green budget proposed by the federal government earlier today?
[Update - noon, 1 April 2015: April Fools'! But it shouldn't be a joke to expect strong environmental laws from the Canadian Government. If you agree, click here to send a message to the Prime Minister.]