Environmental Law Alert Blog

Through our Environmental Law Alert blog, West Coast keeps you up to date on the latest developments and issues in environmental law. This includes:

  • proposed changes to the law that will weaken, or strengthen, environmental protection;
  • stories and situations where existing environmental laws are failing to protect the environment; and
  • emerging legal strategies that could be used to protect our environment.

If you have an environmental story that we should hear about, please e-mail Andrew Gage. We welcome your comments on any of the posts to this blog – but please keep in mind our policies on comments.

2020 Canadian Law Blog Awards Winner

Fish were once so abundant in BC waters that Indigenous elders remember dried salmon being stacked like firewood behind the stove, and the sound of herring at night so loud you could mistake it for rainfall. But declines on the BC coast have accelerated over the last century, with marine wildlife cut in half in just four decades.  

The past few weeks have seen a couple of important developments in the U.S. court cases brought against fossil fuel companies for the costs of climate change.

The hearing of Gitxaała Nation’s ground-breaking case challenging the provincial government’s “free entry” mineral claim staking regime

The Human Rights Commissioner intervened in the Gitxaala Nation and Ehattesaht First Nation's cases challenging the Province's registration of mineral claims on their territories with no prior consultation. As an intervenor, her role was to assist the court and is independent from the parties.

From the point of view of Justice Church of the BC Supreme Court, it was probably pretty clear that the protesters blocking construction of the Coastal GasLink pipeline across Northern BC were breaking the law.

West Coast Environmental Law’s Environmental Dispute Resolution Fund (EDRF) provides legal and funding support for individuals and groups using the law to protect the places, people and species they care about – like Cara Cornell, a Fraser Valley resident working to prevent harm to

Last month, I published an op-ed marking the one-year anniversary of Trans Mountain’s last cost update (Feb. 18, 2022), when the price tag of the expansion ballooned to $21.4 billion.

Last month, the BC provincial government announced new forestry measures as the government begins its work to implement the paradigm shift called for and committed to in the Old Growth Strategic

On March 7, 2023 the Town of Gibsons Council heard from a delegation of its residents who are concerned about the costs of climate change. Dawn Allen and Alaya Boisvert, supported by friends and neighbours, spoke passionately about the ways that climate change is already harming Gibsons. 

On March 21-22, the Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) will hear arguments over one of the country’s most fundamental federal environmental laws – the Impact Assessment Act.