Creditor protection versus polluter pays: Laws leave environment cash strapped The Environmental Law Centre promotes the polluter pays principle as central to effective environmental law. Inherent in the polluter pays principle...
Navigable waters may be litigable waters if Bill C-45 passes As has been widely reported, the second omnibus budget bill has been tabled in Parliament (Bill C-45). Part of the Bill...
Optimistic policy is not what Woodland Caribou need The federal Recovery Strategy for the Woodland Caribou (Rangifer tarandus caribou), Boreal population, in Canada was posted recently and the outlook remains bleak...
An approval too far: Cumulative effects must be considered prior to approving activities The Government of Alberta (GOA) has started down the road of managing cumulative effects. It won’t be easy,...
Closed waters: Managing toxins in Alberta’s surface waters will be far from simple A recent study about high microcystin concentrations in lakes across the country hit the media recently. The study...
Rio +20 = 1867? Canada's interesting math On the verge of the end of Rio +20 and the passage of the federal budget bill (C-38), I felt it worthwhile to do...
Environmental assessment and duplication: “Don’t we have a photocopier?” There is significant rhetoric around how the federal and provincial governments have duplicative and therefore inefficient environmental assessment processes. The federal government...
Is basic science taking a back seat in policy development? There is a mantra that I hear all too often in reference to environmental management. “We can’t manage what we don’t...
Pipelines and participation: Radical rhetoric, planning and public interest There has been significant ink devoted to the recent pipeline proposals in the United States and Canada linking oilsands production to world...
Twas an Alberta night before Christmas (adapted from Twas the Night Before Christmas, C. Moore or H. Livingston) Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house Not a creature was stirring,...
Court directs precaution in pesticide review case A recent decision from the Federal Court of Canada is notable for its interpretation of the how the precautionary principle must guide government decisions...
Cumulative environmental defects The Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development released a report yesterday covering the federal government’s climate change plans and cumulative environmental effects assessment of oil sands projects....