Canada’s environmental laws need your help! It will only take a moment to tell Canada’s MPs that you don’t agree with hiding provisions that gut the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act at the back of a budget statute. After you send your message, please invite your friends to send a message to the Canadian government.
- Click here to send a message to Canada's MP's
- Click here to read about West Coast's role in the battle to protect CEAA
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| Lousiana Oil Spill Highlights the Importance of the Tanker Moratorium
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The tragic and ever-worsening oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico underlines the impossibility of preventing oil spills and the environmental devastation that comes with them. West Coast has spoken out because the spill makes it more clear than ever that Canada needs to put a strong law in place to ensure this risk never comes to the Pacific North Coast – where a pipeline and hundreds of massive tar sands crude oil tankers are currently being proposed.
- Click here to read the op-ed as it appeared in the Vancouver Sun
- Click here to view Josh's interview on Global TV
- Click here to view Josh's interview on Radio-Canada
The decision to move ahead on the Site C dam is irresponsible, given the massive environmental and social impacts of the proposed hydro project, and the fact that BC has yet to come up with a responsible, strategic and inclusive plan for our renewable electricity future. West Coast criticized the government for green-lighting the landscape-changing project without demonstrating that BC needs the power and that this is the most beneficial way to generate it, and for failing to meaningfully involve Treaty 8 First Nations in the decision.
A grant from West Coast Environmental Law has helped the Tsilhqot’in Nation finish their legal submissions to the federal Environmental Review Panel considering whether a mining company should be allowed to turn Fish Lake into a tailings pond. Other recent grants have supported challenges to Health Canada’s refusal to review the safety of the pesticide Glyphosate and the Comox Valley Regional District’s approval of a gas station in a sensitive estuary.
- Click here to read about this and other recent Environmental Dispute Resolution Fund grants from West Coast
Protecting the environment through the law is a complex business and requires many different types of legal expertise. We in BC are blessed to have three public interest environmental law organizations – West Coast Environmental Law, Ecojustice, and the Environmental Law Centre at UVic – each fulfilling a unique and important role in environmental justice. At West Coast we are often asked what is the difference between our three organizations, so for inquiring minds who want to know, West Coast is happy to dispel the mystery!
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