Environmental Assessment Law Reform Objectives

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West Coast Environmental Law regards environmental assessment as a fundamental legal tool for ensuring environmental impacts are considered in the planning and decision-making process. We engage in law and policy reform discussions at both the federal and provincial levels, and support reforms that advance the following principles:

• Inclusive, accessible public participation.
• Transparent and legally accountable scoping, EA process and decision-making.
• Early and thorough assessments of effects, including meaningful cumulative effects assessment that recognizes ecological needs.
• Tools to make the decisions and conditions/limits on development that flow out of an assessment binding and enforceable.
• Better coordination between federal and provincial agencies – not substitution of one for the other.
• Scoping of projects so that all related project components are considered together and in the context of their complete environmental impact.
• Appropriate linkage of the EA process to government’s constitutional duty to consult and accommodate First Nations title and rights.
• Processes and decision-making that uphold Canada and BC’s national and international commitments (Kyoto Protocol, Convention on Biodiversity, etc.)
• Monitoring, enforcement and follow-up/incorporation of learning into future decision-making.