Canada’s \u27Forgotten Forests\u27: Or, How Ottawa is Failing Local Communities and the World in Peri-Urban Forest Protection

The forests found in Canada’s rapidly expanding urban fringes have been decimated by agricultural settlement and urban growth, yet they have been largely overlooked in Canadian forest policy debates. While these “peri-urban” forests fall mainly under provincial jurisdiction, this paper argues that the federal government has the authority and opportunity to negotiate a more active role for itself in this area. The paper assesses the federal government’s track record of international commitments and domestic action on peri-urban forests, canvassing developments in six policy areas: general principles; forest conservation and management; biodiversity and endangered species; land securement and ecological gifts; climate change; and sustainable cities. In all these areas the federal government’s international commitments relevant to peri-urban forests have been modest and its actions at home disappointing. The paper calls for a substantially enhanced federal role in peri-urban forest protection, with an emphasis on national coordination, strategic leadership and funding

Rights of Nature: Who Holds Them?

This guide is one in an evolving series of guides intended to provide a general introduction to RON laws in plain language. They are intended for anyone curious about the subject, from ordinary citizens to community organizers, business people, scientists, politicians, government officials and Indigenous leaders

CLE Working Paper No. 3/2022--What is the Test for Interlocutory Injunctions Affecting Homeless Encampments? A critique of Vancouver Fraser Port Authority v Brett and associated case law

Vancouver Fraser Port Authority v Brett (VFPA v Brett), decided in 2020, marked a new low in judicial responses to the intersecting crises of housing, homelessness, poverty, toxic drugs, mental health, racism and colonialism. By dropping to the ground the already low bar for granting interlocutory injunctions to evict homeless encampments from publicly owned land i n BC, this decision invites a critical assessment of BC courts’ approach to homeless encampment injunctions. In this paper I present the first comprehensive survey of 21st century BC homeless encampment interlocutory injunction applications, which shows that they have an extremely high success rate. I then argue that such applications must satisfy all three prongs of the usual RJR-MacDonald test rather than a more relaxed test based on trespass or statutory violation; that the standard for the first prong should be a strong prima facie case due to the mandatory and effectively final character of most homeless encampment injunctions; and that courts should not decide complex, contested constitutional and evidential issues at the interlocutory stage on the basis of affidavits alone. They should instead reassert the extraordinary character of interlocutory injunctions and repudiate the tendency to treat them as the norm in homeless encampment cases. In short, VFPA v Brett highlighted the urgency of raising the bar for such injunctions to a height that can do justice to the fundamental rights and interests at stake in homeless encampment cases

Canada’s \u27Forgotten Forests\u27: Or, How Ottawa is Failing Local Communities and the World in Peri-Urban Forest Protection

The forests found in Canada’s rapidly expanding urban fringes have been decimated by agricultural settlement and urban growth, yet they have been largely overlooked in Canadian forest policy debates. While these “peri-urban” forests fall mainly under provincial jurisdiction, this paper argues that the federal government has the authority and opportunity to negotiate a more active role for itself in this area. The paper assesses the federal government’s track record of international commitments and domestic action on peri-urban forests, canvassing developments in six policy areas: general principles; forest conservation and management; biodiversity and endangered species; land securement and ecological gifts; climate change; and sustainable cities. In all these areas the federal government’s international commitments relevant to peri-urban forests have been modest and its actions at home disappointing. The paper calls for a substantially enhanced federal role in peri-urban forest protection, with an emphasis on national coordination, strategic leadership and funding

Civil Liability Relief for Brownfields Redevelopers

The paper examines the extent to which state and federal governments in the United States seek to stimulate brownfields redevelopment by legislating immunity against third-party civil (common law) liability for innocent owners or operators who purchase contaminated land. Surveying developments in Alabama, California, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, New Jersey and Virginia, it shows that such liability relief is uncommon, narrow, and largely unknown to brownfields lawyers. It concludes by identifying implications for Canadian lawmakers grappling with similar issues