Canadians want strong environmental laws, and they deserve an environmental assessment process that delivers on core Canadian values related to the environment, democracy, and responsible development.
This paper outlines a blueprint of what strong environmental assessment legislation must include, at a minimum, to protect those values and ensure wise decisions are made about proposed development through an effective, efficient, inclusive and robust decision making process.
The authors offer ten principles as a non-exhaustive checklist against which legislative proposals on this issue may be evaluated.
West Coast Environmental Law is grateful for the generous support of the Law Foundation of British Columbia.
The views expressed in this paper are those of the authors.