INTRODUCTION ENVIRONMENTAL ASSESSMENT

LAW - CML 4103

FEBRUARY 2, 2012

Stephen Hazell M.Sc. LL.B.Managing Partner, Ecovision Law

Introductions

• How am I? • Managing Partner, Ecovision Law, in practice

in Ontario since 1983 www.ecovision-law.ca• Executive Director of 3 national

environmental groups (Sierra Club, CPAWS)• Director Regulatory Affairs of Canadian

Environmental Assessment Agency 1992 -1995

• Who are you?

Natural Resources Minister’s Open Letter

“Unfortunately, there are environmental and other radical groups that would seek to block this opportunity to diversify our trade. Their goal is to stop any major project no matter what the cost to Canadian families in lost jobs and economic growth. No forestry. No mining. No oil. No gas. No more hydro-electric dams.

Natural Resources Minister’s Open Letter (cont’d)

“These groups threaten to hijack our regulatory system to achieve their radical ideological agenda. They seek to exploit any loophole they can find, stacking public hearings with bodies to ensure that delays kill good projects. They use funding from foreign special interest groups to undermine Canada’s national economic interest. They attract jet-setting celebrities with some of the largest personal carbon footprints in the world to lecture Canadians not to develop our natural resources.”

Natural Resources Minister’s Open Letter (cont’d)

“Finally, if all other avenues have failed, they will take a quintessential American approach: sue everyone and anyone to delay the project even further. They do this because they know it can work. It works because it helps them to achieve their ultimate objective: delay a project to the point it becomes economically unviable.”

-- Joe Oliver, Jan. 8, 2012

Prime Minister Harper’s Take on Environmental Assessment Law

“We will make it a national priority to ensure we have the capacity to export our energy products beyond the United States, and specifically to Asia. In this regard we will soon take action to ensure that major energy and mining projects are not subject to unnecessary regulatory delays – that is delay merely for the sake of delay.”

-- Stephen Harper, World Economic Forum, Davos. Jan. 26, 2012

Why Environmental Assessment Law?

• Where the action is in environmental law

• Opportunities to make Canada a more sustainable society

• Corporate community needs lawyers to help navigate environmental assessment reviews

Introduction

• Course objective, expectations, course materials, grading

• Approach – The law and how law is made. How advocacy relating to major development projects has driven development of case law as well as environmental assessment statutes and regulations

• Course outline

Requirements and Topics for Papers and Presentations

• Purpose of Papers/Presentations• Analyze and discuss legal issues relating to

current development projects (e.g., Ottawa River Crossing, Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline, Jackpine Mine Expansion Project)

• Develop a theory for litigation on behalf of applicant/plaintiff or respondent/defendant

What are your expectations from the course?