With Bill C-38 before the Senate, Members of Parliament (MPs) have gone home from Ottawa.  There they will doubtless receive a warm welcome from their constituents, as well as questions about the Budget and why attacks to Canada's environment and the laws that support it were buried in the Bill.  We've compiled our top 6 questions that we’d like to suggest you ask your MP on their return home.  

On May 31, 2012, I travelled to Ottawa, on behalf of West Coast Environmental Law Association, to speak in person about the budget bill’s attack on nature and democracy to the House of Commons Finance Subcommittee on Part 3 of Budget Bill C-38. What is Part 3 of Bill C-38, you may ask?  Part 3 of the 452 page budget bill, a full one third (153 pages) of the bill, is titled “Responsible Resource Development.” This Part is where the proposed cuts and rollbacks to the Fisheries Act, Species at Risk Act, National Energy Board Act, Canadian Environmental Protection Act we have been telling you about and advocating against are. It also entirely replaces the existing environmental assessment law with the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act 2012, an emaciated and entirely new approach to environmental assessment in Canada.

On June 4th, the Black Out Speak Out day of action, over 550 organisations, representing millions of citizens, darkened our websites in a symbolic show of support for nature and democracy, while tens of thousands of Canadians tweeted, blogged, signed petitions and wrote their decision-makers. Media events were held coast to coast, including a Vancouver event emceed by myself on behalf of West Coast Environmental Law.

The phrase “job killing regulation” is beginning to enter Canadian discussions about environmental laws and Bill C-38 – the Budget Implementation Bill which would repeal several laws that protect nature, democracy and marginalized society.  This phrase has been embraced by politicians in the U.S. who are seeking to gut environmental laws there, despite having been discredited by a number of studies.  It would be unfortunate to have this inaccurate and misleading phrase become a prominent part of Canadian political discourse (more below on why it’s inaccurate and misleading). 

The Black Out Speak Out campaign wants to mobilize concerned citizens, businesses and organizations across the country to speak out for Canadian democracy and our environment on June 4th.  Our websites will be going black for a day as a symbolic start of a major online campaign to empower Canadians to speak out for democracy and nature. Working together, we’ll be speaking out for as long as it takes. Join us in working for stronger environmental laws, not gutted ones, and help us spread the word.  This Environmental Law Alert will comment on the 5 top reasons that the Black Out Speak Out campaign has for speaking out, and provide links to more resources if you'd like to know more.

The roll-back of Canada’s environmental laws – legal environmental protection that Canadians have worked for decades to put in place – give the oil and gas industry a host of changes that they've been asking for for years.  While other industries will benefit, It may be useful to list, in one place, just how the oil and gas industry – which is getting a number of perks that are unique to the energy sector – is effectively subsidized by the changes to Canada’s environmental laws.