Greta Thunberg may not have received this year's Nobel Peace Prize, but her nomination reflects the work being done by countless youth around the world who have given the climate movement a new moral urgency.
VANCOUVER, BC, Coast Salish Territories – Climate campaigners at West Coast Environmental Law and the Georgia Strait Alliance responded to today’s announcement by the City of Victoria at the Union of BC Municipalities that one of Canada’s foremost legal minds, Joe Arvay of Arvay Finlay, will be preparing a legal opinion on options for local governments to recover their climate costs from global fossil fuel companies.
Legislation loses points for regulations that exempt high-carbon projects from review
The federal cabinet’s re-approval of the Trans Mountain Pipeline and Tanker Expansion Project (“TMX” or “the Project”) on June 18, 2019 was hardly shocking news. After all, federal cabinet ministers have been saying for years that ‘the pipeline will be built.’ They even spent $4.5 billion of public money to bail out the project when pipeline company Kinder Morgan decided to abandon it.
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 “partisan.”
As summer draws to a close, West Coast is saying goodbye to another cohort of dedicated summer law students who have contributed to our legal programs over the past few months. Each year we host a new group of lawyers-to-be, who assist greatly with legal research, developing educational resources, legal aid support and more.
Below, our 2019 summer law students reflect on their work with West Coast, sharing some of the lessons they learned through their experiences.
Isabelle Lefroy
The last week in June was a big week for those of us who would like to see BC communities hold fossil fuel companies accountable for the costs of climate change.
West Coast Environmental Law is one of more than 50 groups sending this letter to Premier John Horgan asking the BC government to enact a Liability for Climate-related Harms Act. This legislation, modeled on a BC law that defined the legal rules for suing Big Tobacco for BC Healthcare costs, would clarify the legal rules for people harmed by climate change to sue fossil fuel companies for a fair share of climate costs. Enacting such legislation will protect BC communities while sending a financial signal to fossil fuel companies and their investors.
Law reform is our specialty at West Coast Environmental Law. We work at all levels of government to transform the legal landscape and strengthen the laws that affect land, air and water.
This month, we’ve seen our efforts pay off with the passage of four federal bills that we were deeply involved in and that significantly strengthen Canada’s environmental safety net.
Canada’s approval of the Trans Mountain Pipeline project this week is a glaring reminder that the endangered orcas of the Salish Sea may still go extinct. People concerned about a southern resident killer whale population that has dipped to 76 should keep fighting this bad decision, which could push these beloved orcas over the edge.