On January 14, the Supreme Court of British Columbia found that the Province had improperly abdicated its decision making authority with respect to the Enbridge Northern Gateway Project by entering into an Equivalency Agreement with the federal government. Furthermore, the Court found that the Province had breached its duty to consult with First Nations by not ...
In a set of press releases issued today (here and here), the Government of Canada announced 5 principles that it says will guide its discretionary decision-making for projects being reviewed in environmental assessment, along with a set of interim measures it says will be implemented in two existing pipeline reviews.
While today’s announcements will likely have an ...
On September 23, 2015, the Alberta Energy Regulator released Bulletin 2015-28: “Posting of Participation and Procedural Decisions” a significant change in the AER’s practice with respect to the publishing of its decisions. Until now, relatively few AER decisions were directly available on the AER’s website. To date, only five AER decisions from 2015 have been ...
On July 7, 2015, Alberta’s Premier Rachel Notley directed her Cabinet Ministers to review their Ministries’ policies, programs and legislation that may require changes based on the principles of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UN Declaration). Premier Notley tasked her Ministers to “engage directly with Indigenous people to ...
On June 9, 2015, the Alberta Energy Regulator (“AER”) and the Aboriginal Consultation Office (“ACO”) released revised Joint Operating Procedures for First Nations Consultation on Energy Resources Activities (the “Revised Operating Procedures”). Bulletin 2015-20, detailing the revisions, was released by the AER on June 10, 2015. The Revised ...
On Monday, June 1, 2015, the federal Minister of Natural Resources, Greg Rickford, announced that the Extractive Sector Transparency Measures Act has come into force.
As we discussed in an earlier post, the Act will require companies operating in the extractive natural resources sector (oil and gas, mining) to report certain payments, including royalties, taxes, fees ...
Does the granting of subsurface mineral rights trigger the duty to consult with Aboriginal groups? In Saskatchewan, the short answer is “no”. The possibility of impact on Treaty 10 rights from the disposition of subsurface oil sands exploration permits is determined to be “too speculative” by the Saskatchewan Court of Appeal in Buffalo River Dene Nation v ...
On April 15, 2015, the BC Court of Appeal issued its decision in Saik’uz First Nation and Stellat’en First Nation v. Rio Tinto Alcan Inc, 2015 BCCA 154. The decision is significant because the Court of Appeal found that proof of an existing Aboriginal right (including title) is not required prior to Aboriginal peoples commencing claims against private parties to enforce ...
The proposed Extractive Sector Transparency Measures Act has been enacted by Parliament and is now awaiting proclamation. The Government of Canada has stated that it intends to have the Act in force by June, 2015. This post provides a short overview of the legislation and its potential application to contracts between resource developers and Aboriginal governments ...
The duty to consult is a Crown responsibility. But what happens when the Crown’s consultation is inadequate? Can a company that suffers losses as a result claim compensation from the Crown? A recent decision of the British Columbia Court of Appeal in Moulton Contracting Ltd. v British Columbia, 2015 BCCA 89 indicates that it will be very difficult for companies to seek ...
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Lawson Lundell's Environmental, Indigenous and Natural Resources Blog focuses on environmental, indigenous and natural resources law, as well as related litigation. Included are summaries of significant cases from Canadian appellate courts, changes in the legal framework governing resource development including energy and climate change policy, and key decisions from the more influential regulatory bodies in Canada.
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