Environmental Law and Business in Canada.

• Author: Bowal, Peter

"The protection of the environment has become one of the major challenges of our time."(1)

1. INTRODUCTION

   It is old hat now to say that environmentalism is having profound effects on all aspects of Canadian society. Protection of the physical environment bobbles around in the top two or three issues about which Canadians are reportedly most passionately concerned. Canadian governments have responded to a ground-swell of public concern for the environment with a comprehensive regulatory system of environmental protections. Targeting polluters before taxpayers, regulation has had an increasing impact on the Canadian business community. As a consequence, environmental region, long an obscure regulatory specialization for a small number of "boutique" law firms, now plays a role in nearly every business lawyer's practice.

   Environmental Law and Business in Canada responds to the diffuse influence of environmental region on business and business attorneys and brings together disparate current materials in one non-looseleaf volume. While several recent texts offer a similar focus,(2) this collection of twenty essays is sufficiently versatile and accessible to appeal to a wider audience. The editors intend that corporate and commercial attorneys will form the core of this audience, as attorneys seek to convey to their clients an understanding of how environmental regulation affects their respective business.(3)

2. ORGANIZATION AND CONTENT

   "The Legal Framework" is the first of four divisions in the book. Divided into four chapters, "The Legal Framework" details the implementation and formulation of environmental law in Canada as well as the influence of law outside Canada. Chapter One, the most practically useful of the four chapters, offers an excellent outline of current Canadian environmental law. The outline briefs constitutional issues as well as the principal features of key federal and provincial legislation.(4) In addition, the outline introduces traditional common law civil remedies for environmental damage and observes how these land law actions have been imported into the glossary of environmental regulation.

   Chapter Two examines one of the most unsettled realms of environmental regulation: constitutional jurisdiction. While much of the chapter simply restates information already covered, Chapter Two earnestly attempts to catalogue federal and provincial powers and prerogatives. In the end, though, this analysis of provincial versus federal interests proves too meager. As in the case of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms,(5) more questions are presented than analysis provided. On the other hand, one might be forgiven for such tentativeness. As the author concedes, "[t]here can hardly be a time in our history when it is more perilous to attempt to provide a description of constitutional arrangements in Canada".(6) No text can conclusively explain the distribution of legislative powers over the environment, as these issues remain unresolved.

   Chapter Three reviews the layers and reaches of the regulatory process. This Chapter highlights the dual policies of economic ents and tradeable permits in the context of "authorizing a limited amount of contamination and degradation of the environment, in the shadow of the penal sanction of exceeding the authorized levels."(7) In addition, the Chapter criticizes the current licensing and permit system for site-specific developments and endorses the incorporation of even more public participation into the process.

   Chapter Four, entitled "International Environmental Law," canvasses issues arising from acid rain, ozone, climate change, and endangered species. Longer than necessary, this chapter suffers somewhat from the "boilerplate" appearance of standard international law principles and...