On January 30th, 2018, the BC government decided to drop the private prosecution launched by Bev Sellars into the Mount Polley disaster. Through her private prosecution, Bev, a grandmother and former chief of the Xat’sull First Nation, gave the provincial government a second chance to show that BC can enforce its own environmental laws.
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.
When it comes to implementing the recommendations of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, lawyers have unique responsibilities; Calls to Action 27, 28, 29 and 50 are particularly instructive. Today, my colleague Maxine Hayman Matilpi and I reflect on what this means for us as legally trained individuals, our public interest law organization and legal pluralism in Canada.
Global problems – like our plastic-choked seas – need global solutions.
“Regardless of your views on this particular pipeline (we are opposed, in case that wasn’t clear), anyone who thinks their locally-elected government or local First Nations shouldn’t get railroaded by a US corporation just because they have a federal approval should be very concerned about these recent developments.”
Plastics permeate all aspects of our daily lives. Now plastic pollution plagues the planet. Marine plastic debris is pervasive, persistent, and has grave consequences for marine ecosystems.
Consider these facts:
“Politicians grant the permits, but communities grant permission.” – Justin Trudeau
It has been over two years since Prime Minister Justin Trudeau issued mandates to a handful of cabinet ministers to review, modernize and strengthen four important environmental laws.
Bio-waste spread on farmland threatens to contaminate local wells. Pesticide spraying by a logging company is destroying bird habitat. Odours and rodents from a composting facility disturb a rural neighbourhood. Logging on steep slopes threatens a community’s drinking water.
Imagine for a moment that the so-called “war on drugs” focused entirely on addicts, with the manufacturers and sellers of street drugs celebrated as productive members of society who are “just providing a product.”
In 2017 four BC municipalities took the unprecedented step of sending Climate Accountability Letters to Chevron, Exxon and 18 other fossil fuel companies – demanding that these companies pay a fair share of local climate costs.
So what? Isn’t this basically symbolic?