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"Environmental Law and Policy, Fourth Edition examines environmental law across Canada, offering perspectives from each region and presenting samples of statutes, regulations, guidelines, cases, government policy, and academic writings. This casebook illustrates the links between environmental law and other related areas including science, politics, economics, and basic ethical and philosophical concerns."-- Provided by publisher

"Legislated impact assessment requirements were first introduced over fifty years ago with the National Environmental Policy Act in the United States and have since spread to over a hundred and fifty jurisdictions around the world. The details have varied widely, reflecting the global diversity of socio-ecological and governance systems and associated issues, traditions, capacities, ambitions, and power structures. In 2015, Canada embarked on a task that no other country has attempted in recent years: fundamentally reconsidering how best to tackle environmental assessment. This review and revision process ended with the passage of the Impact Assessment Act (IAA) in 2019. The Next Generation of Impact Assessment explores the evolution of the Canadian assessment process and evaluates the effectiveness of the IAA."-- Provided by publisher.

"Legislated impact assessment requirements were first introduced over fifty years ago with the National Environmental Policy Act in the United States and have since spread to over a hundred and fifty jurisdictions around the world. The details have varied widely, reflecting the global diversity of socio-ecological and governance systems and associated issues, traditions, capacities, ambitions, and power structures. In 2015, Canada embarked on a task that no other country has attempted in recent years: fundamentally reconsidering how best to tackle environmental assessment. This review and revision process ended with the passage of the Impact Assessment Act (IAA) in 2019. The Next Generation of Impact Assessment explores the evolution of the Canadian assessment process and evaluates the effectiveness of the IAA."-- Provided by publisher.

The Canadian Environmental Assessment Act (CEAA), as well as comparable laws such as the Ontario Environmental Assessment Act, is precisely the type of law one would expect to play a role in mitigating greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from new projects. Unfortunately, in practice, CEAA is proving to be a failure in reducing or even stabilizing ever-increasing Canadian GHG emissions most notably from the oil and gas sector, particularly the tar sands. This article explores the reasons why CEAA has thus far disappointed advocates hoping to see the mitigation of GHG emissions from new projects. The author suggests that headway in reducing GHG emissions may nonetheless be made under CEAA by convincing courts that significance can only be defined in a manner consistent with the dictates of climate science. In particular, a focus on cumulative effects may help define significance in a more climate-friendly manner. The article also explores law reform options that would make CEAA a more effective tool in addressing climate change.

"In Canada since 1875, courts have been permitted to act as advisors alongside their ordinary, adjudicative role. This book offers the first detailed examination of that role from a legal perspective. When one thinks of courts, it is most often in the context of deciding cases: live disputes involving spirited, adversarial debate between opposing parties. Sometimes, though, a court is granted the power to answer questions in the absence of cases through a reference or advisory opinions. These proceedings raise many questions: about the judicial role, about the relationship between courts and those who seek their "advice", and about the nature of law. Tracking their use in Canada since the country's Confederation and looking to the experience in other legal systems, this book considers how reference opinions draw courts into the complex relationship between law and politics. Focusing on key themes such as the separation of powers, federalism, rights and precedent, this book provides an important and timely study of a fascinating phenomenon"-- Provided by publisher

The Canadian environmental assessment (EA) regime is broken. At a time when the Canadian economy is both increasingly sluggish and unsustainable, we have an obligation -- and perhaps a once-in-a-generation opportunity -- to fundamentally reform EA to enable it to finally live up to its promise of promoting sound and sustainability-based decisions. This task is even more pressing in light of the global commitment under the Paris Climate Change Agreement to rapidly transition to greenhouse gas emissions neutrality. Among the many priorities of meaningful EA reform -- moving beyond project-level assessments, focusing on net positive contributions to sustainability, avoiding costly trade-offs among interdependent economic, ecological, and social objectives -- we focus on the overarching need for polyjural collaboration and polycentric consensus-based decision-making. We argue that any serious effort to move from project-level EAs focused exclusively on adverse biophysical impacts towards a fully integrated, sustainability-based assessment (SA) regime requires a polyjural and polycentric approach capable of facilitating collaborative experimentation among multiple jurisdictional actors, including the federal government, provinces, territories, municipalities, Indigenous peoples, NGOs, academia, project proponents and industry groups, and the Canadian public. After examining the constitutional and political dimensions of the federal and provincial governments' role in EA, we provide two compelling rationales for transitioning to a SA regime. The paper concludes by setting out a series of possible forms of SA for the purpose of informing the federal government's review of its EA regime. In particular, we identify and analyze the competing options for jurisdictional cooperation, collaboration, and consensus-based assessment processes along with the constitutional and practical policy implications of each.

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The Canadian Environmental Assessment Act 2012, which came into force on 6 July 2012, virtually eliminates the core of federal-level environmental assessment in Canada. Under the new law, federal environmental assessments will be few, fragmentary, inconsistent and late. Key decision-making will be discretionary and consequently unpredictable. Much of it will be cloaked in secrecy. The residual potential for effective, efficient and fair assessments will depend heavily on requirements under other federal legislation and on the uneven diversity of provincial, territorial and Aboriginal assessment processes. This paper reviews the key characteristics of the new law in light of 10 basic design principles for environmental assessment processes, and considers the broader international implications of the Canadian retreat from application of these principles.

Disclaimer: This summary was generated by AI based on the content of the source document.