Despite having one the largest coastal and marine areas in North America, many people will be surprised to hear that British Columbia is one of the very few coastal jurisdictions on the continent that does not have a coastal protection strategy and law.
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.
We are facing a climate emergency and a biodiversity crisis. Canadians are already experiencing floods, fires, ecological disruption and as our planet continues to warm, our collective well-being is deeply under threat.
In the Supreme Court of Canada’s 1996 decision in R v Van Der Peet, Justice Beverley McLachlin[1] famously made reference to a “golden
In June 2019, Canadians celebrated the passing of a series of important federal environmental laws – including the Impact Assessment Act and Canadian Energy Regulator Act (Bill C-69) and the Oil Tanker Moratorium Act (Bill C-48).
The excitement and anticipation from the public viewing gallery at BC’s legislature was palpable.
This week a special subgroup of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) spoke out about the state of the world’s oceans and coasts. The facts are worrying – sea levels are rising, marine species hover on the brink of extinction, and ocean water quality is deteriorating.
The BC Government is seeking public input until October 7, 2019, on its
H̓aíkḷa: To make things right – An opportunity for change
The fifth anniversary of the Mount Polley Mine Disaster has come and gone.
It sounded like something out of Orwell’s 1984: the Canadian media reported that Elections Canada had indicated that charities and non-profits who speak out about climate change could be considered “pa