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

Gitxaała Nation members at the press conference launching litigation, Oct. 2021
Modernizing BC’s mineral tenure legislation in the wake of its colonial harm

In the recently released Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act (DRIPA) Action Plan, the BC government made an important and long-overdue commitment to reform the Mineral Tenure Act.

Net Zero or Net Reckless? – What is the appropriate role for negative emissions technologies in meeting Canada's climate targets?

West Coast is pleased to announce the launch of our latest report, “Net Zero or Net Reckless? What is the appropriate role for negative emissions technologies in meeting Canada's climate targets?”

Smokestacks and clouds
Why we need a law to keep oil and gas emissions from wrecking Canadian climate targets

For decades, Canadians across different sectors of the economy have been working to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. From agriculture to construction, to our household carbon footprints, people in Canada are ready to do their part for the climate – and now it is Big Oil’s turn.

TMX is taking its toll on Canadian taxpayers – and losing federal support

On Friday, February 18, 2022, just before a long weekend, and while the country was focused on the Trucker Convoy’s occupation of Ottawa, Trans Mountain Corporation released a long overdue cost estimate for the Trans Mountain Pipeline Expansion (TMX).

Ocean-related lessons from the IPCC: Part 2 – Focusing on ocean climate solutions

This blog is the second in a two-part series: Part 1 reviews the latest UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report from a marine perspective; and Part 2 outlines solutions to the climate impacts the ocean is facing.

Ocean-related lessons from the IPCC: Part 1 – Why we need the ocean

This blog is the first in a two-part series: Part 1 reviews the latest UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report from a marine perspective; and Part 2 outlines solutions to the climate impacts the ocean is facing.

Tell Canada's government: Fund nature and climate action, not fossil fuels

The federal government is preparing to introduce its 2022 budget, considering funding decisions that will have major implications on Canada’s ability to address key environmental and social justice priorities in the coming years.

IPCC’s report suggests criminal abdication of climate leadership will be fought in the courts

Do you, like us, think that governments and fossil fuel companies should be sued for what they have done to our atmosphere?

Hope for the Skagit Headwaters, and renewed impetus for mineral tenure reform in BC

Last month Imperial Metals agreed to relinquish its mineral claims in the Skagit River Headwaters, about 37 kilometres east of Hope, BC, near the Canada-US border.

Two years (and a global pandemic) later, what's the price tag on Trans Mountain?

In the Before Times…

Two years ago, in February 2020, I bundled up and traveled to Ottawa to meet with MPs to discuss the Trans Mountain Pipeline Expansion Project (TMX). Little did I know that it would be my last work trip for a long time.