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

Late last week (Thursday, September 8th), the Canadian government, after working for almost a decade to develop a plan to manage BC’s North Coast, known as the Pacific North Coast Integrated Marine Area Plan (PNCIMA), suddenly announced that it is withdrawing from an agreemen

At the end of the summer, West Coast and our allies in the campaign to achieve a legislative tanker ban on BC’s North Coast decided that it would be a great idea to meet to discuss strategy and next steps on the coastal waters of the Great Bear Rainforest.  In this way we could trave

Industry and government are often quick to proclaim the jobs created by mines and other industrial operations, and to characterize environmental assessment and other environmental la

Recent revelations at the Cohen Commission that the Prime Minister’s Office muzzled Dr.

Recently, I was invited to participate in a trip to the tar sands, and to Fort Chipewyan in northern Alberta for meetings with people affected by tar sands development, along with representatives from other environmental organizations.

In terms of news about Environmental Assessment, it never rains but it pours. 

On 7 July 2011, John Doyle, the Auditor General of British Columbia, released an audit examining the post-certification stage of the environmental assessment p

A BC Court of Appeal decision issued earlier this month (July 5th) has confirmed that the province’s Riparian Areas Regulation (RAR) by itself provides little legal protection for fish habitat.  The RAR is the province’s primary legal tool

Dene Tha’ First Nation Challenges the Sale of Oil and Gas Parcels on their Traditional Territory

Last week (on July 13th), Madame Justice Wedge of the BC Supreme Court sided with the Halalt First Nation and suspended plans to pump water from the Chemainus aquifer to be used in the District of North Cowichan.  West Coast Environmenta