West Coast really lucked out this year with our incredible cohort of summer law students! For the past four months, our legal interns have been getting a taste of what practicing environmental and Indigenous law looks like by supporting our programs on applied issues – including research, attending forums, contributing to blogs and reports, and much more.

We at West Coast are grateful to have been a part of their legal journey and we look forward to seeing what’s in store for this next generation of environmental lawyers. Check out what they had to say about their time with us:

Standing under the towering presence of a 600+ year old being, a hushed awe permeates the group. As we silently recognize the magnificence of this life form, I suspect I am not the only one who longs to hear the stories this tree carries.

“We are going to sue Big Oil,” noted journalist Avi Lewis told us. “This is an historic moment, and you are going to be able to tell everyone you were here when it began.”

For decades, Canadians across different sectors of the economy have been working to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. From agriculture to construction, to our household carbon footprints, people in Canada are ready to do their part for the climate – and now it is Big Oil’s turn.

On Friday, February 18, 2022, just before a long weekend, and while the country was focused on the Trucker Convoy’s occupation of Ottawa, Trans Mountain Corporation released a long overdue cost estimate for the Trans Mountain Pipeline Expansion (TMX).

Do you, like us, think that governments and fossil fuel companies should be sued for what they have done to our atmosphere? This was one of the lenses with which we read last week’s new report from the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability. While the report is frankly scary, we were struck by the importance of the report for future climate change litigation – and its nod to the political power of citizens. 

Last month Imperial Metals agreed to relinquish its mineral claims in the Skagit River Headwaters, about 37 kilometres east of Hope, BC, near the Canada-US border. On January 19, 2022, officials announced that an agreement was reached with the Government of British Columbia that will see Imperial Metals surrender all mineral tenures and related rights in the 5,800-hectare unprotected region of the Skagit Headwaters.

The telling of true stories is necessary to remember our collective history across the globe. Specifically, this has become clear in recent discussions about the abundant life of Semá:th Lake (also known as Sumas Lake) in the Fraser Valley of BC, which once “reached from Chilliwack into Washington State.”

Lawyers urge incoming federal government to apply a “climate justice lens” to all statutes

West Coast has reviewed the party’s ocean commitments in its election platform and assessed how they measure against the work that needs to be done. We identified a few glaring holes, many important and encouraging commitments, and several high-level statements whose effectiveness will depend on the details.