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.

The response to plastic needs to be drastic!

Imagine it’s summertime, and you’re having a backyard barbeque with some friends. You have some beers, a little something sizzling on the grill and maybe some fresh seafood. Sounds enticing, right?

What if you knew that everything you’re consuming – beer, salt, and shellfish being the worst offenders – has microplastics in it? A plastic barbeque.

This election, who we vote for matters more than ever. Not just for our country, but for our children’s future and the health of our planet.

In the next five years, Canada and the world will face critical decisions about our future. As ecosystems fail and the planet warms dangerously, our collective well-being is deeply under threat. There is still time to chart a course to a safe future for all – but we must act urgently to uphold environmental protection, economic justice and human rights.

Law reform is our specialty at West Coast Environmental Law.  We work at all levels of government to transform the legal landscape and strengthen the laws that affect land, air and water.

This month, we’ve seen our efforts pay off with the passage of four federal bills that we were deeply involved in and that significantly strengthen Canada’s environmental safety net.