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

At West Coast, we know that safeguarding the environment must be approached from multiple angles. One such angle is ensuring that current and proposed federal environmental laws are just and sustainable.

You may have heard of the Great Bear Sea Marine Protected Area (MPA) Network, which is an inspiring project by coastal Indigenous nations and the federal and provincial government to protect vast swaths of ecologically rich ocean in the north and central coast of BC.

Critters, rejoice. Canada appears to be in an era of renewed attention to wildlife and the lands and waters they need to survive and thrive. 

We made history at COP15 in 2022.

Together, we inspired a historic plan to stop nature loss once and for all: the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF).

The BC government is currently experiencing backlash for proposing amendments to the Land Act that could allow the Province to implement joint or consent-based decision-making agreements with Indigenous governments in relation to lands within their territories.

What is a local government to do when it has a “funding gap” that will expose its residents to climate impacts and prevent it from meeting its climate goals? That’s the question that staff at the District of Saanich dealt with as they wrote up their fifth Annual Climate Plan Report Card.

Last year at this time, Vancouver was the centre of the marine conservation world, as the city hosted the 5th International Marine Protected Areas Congress (IMPAC5). The Congress brought together attendees from far and wide to make progress on global marine protection goals.

Join us in calling on the Senate to pass Bill C-226, An Act respecting the development of a national strategy to assess, prevent and address environmental racism and to advance environmental justice.  

I’ve always been a sucker for lists of three (not sure why), so a recent American article on three climate cases to watch in the coming year got me thinking: what climate litigation can we expect in Canada in 2024, and what might they mean? 

This week, we were at the Court of Appeal for Ontario in support of seven youth who are suing the Ontario government over its weak climate target and plan. The youth are being represented by lawyers from Ecojustice and Stockwoods.