Last week (on March 26th) Mr. Peter Tabuns, the Ontario NDP’s Environment and Climate Change Critic, introduced Bill 21, the Liability for Climate-related Harms Act, 2018 into the Ontario Legislature.
VANCOUVER, BC, Coast Salish Territories - Lawyers from the West Coast Environmental Law Association applaud the Liability for Climate Harm Act, 2018, introduced today in the Ontario Legislature today by Peter Tabuns, MPP, the Environment and Climate Change Critic for the Ontario NDP. West Coast Environmental Law invited BC’s governing NDP Government, and other BC parties, to consider introducing similar legislation in the province.
Things are heating up in the battle to stop Kinder Morgan. At time of writing, dozens of water protectors have been arrested for violating a court injunction issued last week. Here is a recap of how we got here.
VANCOUVER, BC, Coast Salish Territories - Today, the BC government announced that it is initiating a reference case to confirm the scope of provincial authority to protect BC from the risks of a diluted bitumen spill.
West Coast Environmental Law staff say "Pinot and pugs, not pipelines!"
I never imagined that I would write three consecutive blogs about jurisdiction. But then again, I never imagined that drinking BC wine would become a way to oppose the Kinder Morgan pipeline. And that is just one part of what’s happened since my last blog post just a few weeks ago.
Amendments needed to fulfill government’s promise to restore public trust in environmental decisions
VANCOUVER, BC, Coast Salish Territories – Lawyers with West Coast Environmental Law Association say new federal legislation tabled today could put Canada back on the right course towards restoring public trust in environmental decision-making, if amendments are made to address key concerns.
In the summer of 2017, BC’s new provincial government promised to reform environmental assessment and planning in British Columbia. This commitment puts BC at the doorstep of a major opportunity to transform the way we assess and plan for development activities in the province, in order to better align provincial decisions with the needs of ecosystems, the vision of BC communities, and the exercise of jurisdiction by Indigenous nations.
VANCOUVER, BC, Coast Salish Territories – West Coast Environmental Law applauds a new provincial plan announced today to restrict the transportation of diluted bitumen in BC unless the science shows that spills can safely be cleaned up. A proposed regulation limiting increased bitumen shipments by pipeline or rail is a welcome safety measure for the environment and public health, say the environmental lawyers, and an important warning for Kinder Morgan if it continues to pursue its Trans Mountain pipeline and tankers project.
“Regardless of your views on this particular pipeline (we are opposed, in case that wasn’t clear), anyone who thinks their locally-elected government or local First Nations shouldn’t get railroaded by a US corporation just because they have a federal approval should be very concerned about these recent developments.”