CHN PRESS RELEASE: NORTHERN GATEWAY PROJECT DEAD AND MORATORIUM COMING

We are very pleased to see the government turn down the Northern Gateway Pipeline.  It comes at a cost:  Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain Expansion and Line 3.  There is still more work to be done.

Please see the new Press Release from the Council of the Haida Nation on Trudeau’s announcement.  According to CHN President Peter Lantin:

“There has to be a better government-to-government consultation process to deal with these projects before they get rolling,” said Lantin. “Avoiding this type of confrontation through frank dialogue will result in more common ground. Protecting the coast and the waters surrounding Haida Gwaii is paramount for our Nation. But within this framework there is room to develop practical solutions and resolve issues nation-to-nation and to do that we have to talk.”

CHN PRESS RELEASE: ACCUMULATING IMPACTS: HAIDA HAVE GOOD REASON TO OPPOSE LNG & ENB MEGAPROJECTS

The Council of the Haida Nation have made available a press release detailing the strategies LNG and Pipeline companies use to pursue ‘social license.’  On their own position, the CHN states:

“There are many good reasons to oppose these projects and few to support them. The perceived

benefits in no way trump what we know we will lose. Our Nation has done its due diligence; we have spoken

to BC and Canada, we have looked at the environmental, social and legal impacts of these projects and are not

convinced that shipping LNG or oil from the west coast is a good idea. These projects will further pollute the

Earth and no good will come of them.”

To view the full press release, please see: CHN_LNG_ENB_Final

British Columbia Supreme Court Decides That The Province Cannot Abdicate Its Authority

[Originally published on mondaq, February 23, 2016]

Recently the British Columbia Supreme Court (“Court”) released its reasons for judgment in Coastal First Nations v. British Columbia (Environment), 2016 BCSC 34. The BC Environmental Assessment Office (the “EAO”) had entered into an equivalency agreement (the “Agreement”) with the National Energy Board (“NEB”). The Agreement allowed for the EAO to rely on an environmental assessment from the NEB related to Enbridge’s Northern Gateway project (the “Project”). The   Court found that the Province of British Columbia had abdicated its statutory duties and breached its duty to consult with the Coastal First Nations when it signed and failed to terminate the Agreement that provided the NEB with sole jurisdiction over the environmental assessment decision-making regarding the Project.

BACK TO THE DRAWING BOARD: Looking to have the federal decision on the Enbridge pipeline ruled ‘invalid’

First Nations on the coast including the Haida are taking Canada to court to have the JRP review of the Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline declared invalid.  Stay tuned for the hearing:

Federal Court of Appeal
October 1 – 2 and 5 – 8, 2015
Vancouver, BC
Open to the public.

From the Council of the Haida Nation:

The next milestone in the ongoing effort to defend northern BC from oil pipelines and supertankers is just around the corner. Please see attached PDF: CHN Legal Challenge Overview 2015.8.12

Coastal First Nations Remembers Exxon Valdez Oil Spill in Ad Campaign

[youtube:http://youtu.be/1XNwjdI5m_E%5D

Have you heard the radio call from the Exxon Valdez?  The audio of the tanker captain’s call for help over the radio is the opening soundtrack for a 2 minute awareness ad for the campaign against the Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline, and the expansion of tanker traffic on the coast of BC.  The ad gives us statistics on the potential impact of a spill like the Exxon Valdez in Canada, for example, costing 4,379 jobs, and $21.4 Billion dollars to clean up (biologists monitoring the ecosystems in Alaska point out that the Valdez spill was never fully cleaned up and that oil can still be found by digging a few feet into the sand of some beaches.  See Lingering Oil).  Set to the Sounds of Silence by Paul Simon, the video is a reminder to us of what is at stake in pursuing a resource-based industry in Canada.

Top Ten Changes to the Fisheries Act: Conservatives Open the Door to Development at the Cost of Environment, Water, Fish

This is an analysis prepared by West Coast Environmental Law and Ecojustice to summarize how the changes that the Harper government proposes will affect environmental protection in Canada.

Read the full original document at the WCEL website

Read “Why the Budget Act is bad news for fish”

What Bill C-38 means for the environment

1. Changes to the Fisheries Act mean that the law may no longer protect all fish and
the waters where they live.
The new protection framework could exclude many fish and watercourses. Generally,
habitat protection will only include permanent alteration or destruction of “commercial,
recreational or aboriginal fisher(ies)” habitat and some activities will be exempt from the
law regardless of how much damage they cause. The federal government will also be
able to hand over the power to authorize destruction of fish habitat to provincial
governments or other entities, which is worrisome.

2. No maximum time limits on permits allowing impacts on species at risk.
This means that there will no longer be any guaranteed review to evaluate ongoing
impacts to endangered species. These potential ‘perpetual’ permits could continue even
where there is a drastic decline in the population of a species affected by the permitted
activity.

3. The National Energy Board (NEB) will be exempted from species at risk
protections.
The NEB will no longer have to ensure that measures have been taken to minimize
impacts on the critical habitat of at-risk species before the NEB approves a pipeline or
other major infrastructure. For example,