How can Canada meet its greenhouse gas reduction targets and break its cycle of failing grades? Implement a Canadian Climate Accountability Act.

On Friday June 12, the Trans Mountain pipeline spilled an estimated 190,000 litres of oil at the Sumas Pump Station near Abbotsford, BC. This is the 85th oil spill from the nearly 70-year-old pipeline, confirming the fears of many that oil spills are inevitable.

After COVID-19, let's build BC back better – in ways that fight climate change, inequality & injustice. 

To say that Teck’s Frontier Mine was controversial is an understatement. For some, the open pit oil sands mine was a litmus test of Canada’s commitment to real climate action – not to mention stripping over 20,000 hectares of wetlands, old-growth forest and peatland and creating massive toxic tailings ponds. For others, it was the source of future prosperity and jobs for Alberta’s flagging economy.

Hello, my name is Helen Copeland. I am a descendent of the P’egp’ig’lha (frog) people, from T’ít’q’et community, one of eleven Indigenous communities that make up St’át’imc Nation. I started working for West Coast Environmental Law in January 2020 as the Program Manager for RELAW (Revitalizing Indigenous Law for Land, Air and Water). You can learn more about the journey that led me to take this role here.

In the Supreme Court of Canada’s 1996 decision in R v Van Der Peet, Justice Beverley McLachlin^[1] famously made reference to a “golden thread”: 

Who is minding the coast in BC? You might be surprised to learn there are some big gaps – protecting shoreline habitat, working with Indigenous governments to legally implement marine planning , managing the cumulative effects of tenures for docks, utilities, log handling, shellfish aquaculture, and a range of other commercial uses…it all adds up to vulnerability for BC coastlines and the communities that depend on them.

In June 2019, Canadians celebrated the passing of a series of important federal environmental laws – including the Impact Assessment Act and Canadian Energy Regulator Act (Bill C-69) and the Oil Tanker Moratorium Act (Bill C-48). Bills C-69 and C-48 overhauled Canada’s broken environmental assessment process, strengthened energy regulation, and banned crude oil supertankers on the Pacific north coast.

The federal cabinet’s re-approval of the Trans Mountain Pipeline and Tanker Expansion Project (“TMX” or “the Project”) on June 18, 2019 was hardly shocking news. After all, federal cabinet ministers have been saying for years that ‘the pipeline will be built.’ They even spent $4.5 billion of public money to bail out the project when pipeline company Kinder Morgan decided to abandon it.