Posts Tagged ‘Public participation’

A small victory: decision grants broad rights to participate in environmental reviews, but changes to scope of EAs and cuts will hamper access, result in less thorough reviews

January 17th, 2013 by Paula Boutis and Jessica Weizenbluth

Last November Laura Bowman wrote a blog post about Alberta case law which might shed some light on how “interested party” status under the new federal Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, 2012 (CEAA 2012) might be interpreted, particularly as it relates to who is deemed to be “directly affected”.   To have a right to participate in hearings under CEAA, parties must establish they are an “interested party”, and to be an interested party, the party must either be “directly affected by the carrying out of the designated project” or have “relevant information or expertise”.

Subsequent to Laura’s post, we learned of a decision of a Federal Review Panel (the Panel) constituted under CEAA which explored this question.

Continue reading “A small victory: decision grants broad rights to participate in environmental reviews, but changes to scope of EAs and cuts will hamper access, result in less thorough reviews”

David McRobert and Paula Boutis Propose an Ontario Participant and Intervenor Funding Act

January 30th, 2012 by Iler Campbell LLP

In August David McRobert and Paula Boutis asked if it was time for Ontario political parties to revisit the issue of intervenor funding and access to environmental justice. They have followed up and made an application under the Environmental Bill of Rights requesting a review of existing laws, regulations and policies related to public participation and hearings under the Environment Assessment Act and other environmental and planning laws.

Continue reading “David McRobert and Paula Boutis Propose an Ontario Participant and Intervenor Funding Act”