When it comes to implementing the recommendations of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, lawyers have unique responsibilities; Calls to Action 27, 28, 29 and 50 are particularly instructive. Today, my colleague Maxine Hayman Matilpi and I reflect on what this means for us as legally trained individuals, our public interest law organization and legal pluralism in Canada.

Trish Monture asserts in Thunder in My Soul: A Mohawk Woman Speaks:

Every oppression that has been foisted upon Aboriginal people in the history of Canada has been implemented through [colonial law] . . . This includes child welfare apprehension, residential schools,

Asking questions about professional reliance in BC

BC’s new NDP government recently announced a wide-ranging review of “professional reliance.” Environment and Climate Change Minister, George Heyman, was accompanied at the announcement by Green MLA Sonia Furstenau, who has been on the forefront of pressing for this review after her own experience (prior to her election) in opposing contaminated soil disposal in her own community.

West Coast Environmental Law welcomes this review, which has the potential to improve legal protection for human health and the environment by addressing a major approach to deregulation that has been implemented in BC over the . . . [more]

It is not every day that we have an opportunity to effect transformative legal change. It is natural, then, that when last summer a number of cabinet ministers announced the review of four key federal environmental laws, West Coast Environmental Law – along with other lawyers, academics, environmental groups, Indigenous peoples and the general public – took a keen interest. Through these reviews we have an opportunity to not only strengthen environmental processes and substantive legal protections, but to also transform the governance of environmental planning and decision-making.

This opportunity is perhaps most pronounced in the reviews of federal . . . [more]

Each Monday we present brief excerpts of recent posts from five of Canada’s award­-winning legal blogs chosen at random* from more than 80 recent Clawbie winners. In this way we hope to promote their work, with their permission, to as wide an audience as possible.

This week the randomly selected blogs are 1. Meurrens on Immigration  2. StartupSource
 3. Susan on the Soapbox  4. Off the Shelf  5. Blogue du CRL

Meurrens on Immigration
Understanding Judicial Review

Where a visa application has been refused and an applicant is convinced that the decision is unreasonable then it may be advisable to . . . [more]

Nice interview on the Talking Radical Radio podcast with staff lawyers Dyna Tuytel and Barry Robinson from the Calgary office of Ecojustice. I’ve briefly touched on the great work of Ecojustice in the past but for those who may not be familiar with this organization they describe their work as follows:

“Ecojustice goes to court and uses the power of the law to defend nature, slow climate change, and stand up for the health of our communities.

We pursue innovative cases that have the potential to set precedents nation-wide and deliver solutions to our most urgent environmental problems.”

Podcast . . . [more]

Big news, friends: Canada’s first food law & policy conference is happening in a little less than a month. The Future of Food Law & Policy in Canada is this November 3-4 at the Schulich School of Law in Halifax, Nova Scotia. This conference marks the first time that leaders in the legal community will come together to discuss how to strengthen and improve our food systems, to consider how stakeholders perceive and adapt to change, and to learn better practices and approaches to food law problems for clients, researchers, and government.

I have written previously on both the ups . . . [more]

Environmental Assessment (EA) is a critical part of our repertoire of environmental law tools, designed to allow us to “look before we leap” into activities with potentially significant effects on the environment. A massive overhaul of Canada’s Canadian Environmental Assessment Act in 2012 resulted in the elimination of over three thousand assessments of proposed projects and activities, reduced public involvement in environmental decision-making and weakened environmental protection. EA processes and decisions have been increasingly subject to lawsuits, criticism and protests, with the target of dissent being either the project (say, Kinder Morgan’s controversial proposed oil sands pipeline) or the . . . [more]

Litigation and arbitration are teeming with experts these days.

There are technical experts to explain what happened. Others to say whose fault it was. And another bunch to quantify the damages.

Almost every sizable case has at least one expert on the witness list. Well, never just one. Each side must have their own expert. And, of course, they never agree.

That’s the problem with experts. Recent studies have shown that people have a very hard time understanding what experts say and giving appropriate weight to conflicting expert opinions. Adjudicators are no different from anyone else.

Derek Koehler, a psychology . . . [more]

Earth Jurisprudence: Private Property and the Environment. By Peter D. Burdon. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, 2015. xv, 171 pages. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN: 978-0-415-63317-8 (Hardback) $131.00.*

Almost every day we hear reports describing another environmental disaster or extreme weather event reminding us that the climate change alarm bells are ringing loud and clear. However, despite this awareness, we remain daunted by the seemingly impossible challenge of changing the course of a future fuelled by economic growth and our misguided view that the Earth, and everything on it, is here for human beings to develop and exploit.

This is . . . [more]

Innovation is an integral part of the private sector. Why does innovation seem so much harder in the public sector (or in places like the justice system where the public sector/government plays a major role)?

It doesn’t take much reflection to realize that there are quite a few reasons why innovation in the public sector is more challenging and, at the same time, potentially more fulfilling. It is important to identify these unique contextual factors in order to respond to them effectively.

In his 2004 article “System Failure: Why Governments Must Learn to Think Differently”, Jake Chapman observed . . . [more]

When someone mentions the words “human rights”, there’s often a very romanticized notion of what that means. People might imagine a right to live, or a right to be treated fairly, and a right to live and believe in whatever we want to believe. While there may be some discrepancies, the common thread among different interpretations is the answer to the question “what is it that we are all equally entitled to?”. When it comes to “big ticket” items like the right to live, worship and think freely, it’s difficult to argue against that.

But what about issues such as . . . [more]