Ontario’s Environmental Bill of Rights (EBR) which was passed in 1993, and came into effect in February 1994, has been a significant addition to environmental legislature. It has recognized that people within Ontario have a common goal to protect our natural environment and feel that this needs to be represented as a right to a clean environment. It thus calls upon the provincial government to have the primary responsibility in protecting, conserving, and restoring the natural environment (ECO, 2010). It also sees the need for public participation in order to hold the government accountable for its decisions. Thus the main objectives of the EBR are ensuring environmental protection, the enhancing of governmental accountability, and the facilitation of public participation in environmental decision-making. The EBR, however, still has room for improvement. This essay will be looking at the three main objectives of the EBR in order to review; what has worked, what hasn’t worked, and how it can be improved.
We would like to begin by discussing the evolution of what will become known as the EBR. The first idea of having a statute that would provide people with environmental rights can be traced back to American law. The first of such laws was the Michigan Environmental Protection Act (MEPA) of 1970 which was seen as a “lean, mean, green, right to sue” (Lindgren, 2010). It was the work of the then University of Michigan law professor Joseph Sax (Emond, 1994). He had previously thought up the idea for an environmental rights act in his book, Defending the Environment (Emond, 1994). The idea was quickly taken up by environmentalists in Canada, especially by the Canadian Environmental Law Association (CELA) (Emond, 1994). Soon...
... middle of paper ...
...ntario's Environmental Bill of Rights and You. http://www.conservationhamilton.ca/Asset/iu_files/EBR.pdf. Toronto: Environmental Commissioner of Ontario.
Emond, P. (1994). An Environmental Bill of Rights - Ontario Style. Government Information in Canada , 2 (3), 1.
Environmental Bill of Rights 1993. (1993).
Government of Ontario. (2010). About the Registry. Retrieved February 9, 2010, from Environmental Registry: http://www.ebr.gov.on.ca
Lindgren, R. (2010, March 12). Lafarge.
McRobert, D. (2008, November 21). An Overview of Ontario's Environmental Bill of Rights. Peterborough, Ontario.
Ontario's Environmental Bill of Rights. (2003).
Turgano, R. (2009, November 5). Ecojustice Applauds Proposed Canadian Environmental Bill of Rights. Retrieved March 22, 2010, from The Green Pages: http://thegreenpages.ca/portal/ca/2009/11/ecojustice_applauds_proposed_c.html
Solis, Hilda. “Environmental Justice: An Unalienable Right for All.” Human Rights 30 (2003): 5-6. JSTOR. Web. 13 February 2014.
"Bill of Rights (Canada), August 4, 1960." DISCovering World History. Detroit: Gale, 2003. Canada in Context. Web. 4 Dec. 2013.
"Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms." Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. 2nd ed. 1982. N. pag. Print.
The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms has long been the legal document that protects Canadian citizens from infringements made by unscrupulous politicians and legislators. However, there are questions explored about the Sections of the Charter and in those of Section 7 in particular. This is because of the protective function of Section 7 and its obligations of the protection of a citizen’s rights to life, liberty and security of the person. There are third parties that could be posing “threats” to Charter interests and therefore the extents of Section 7 in terms of its protective function for individuals’ rights are put into question. Section 7 of the Charter says that “[E]veryone has the right to life, liberty and the security of the person and the right not to be deprived thereof except in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice.” The meaning of Section 7 is to adhere to each individual’s right to the sanctity of life, their physical liberty in a narrow sense, and the integrity of the person is to be kept secure. However, what would the extent of Section 7 be or moreover, what is the extent of each protected interest? The objective of this paper is to examine the extents of Section 7 of the Charter in which the focus is on the protected interests of life, liberty and security of the person. Each protected interest will be discussed in depth with its relationship to a specific Canadian court case. This will help to determine the extent of Section 7 and therefore help understand how much the Charter protects the freedom of Canadian citizens. For right to life, the First Nation communities in Canada had ‘high risk’ of threats to health in their water systems according to Health Canada. The focus of this topic...
According to Gordon Walker there are three concepts of justice: Distributive, which conceives justice in terms of the distribution or sharing out of goods (resources) and bads (harm and risk), Procedural, which conceives justice in terms of the way in which decisions are made, who is involved and has influence, and finally justice as recognition, which conceives justice in terms of who is given respect and who is and isn’t valued (Walker, 10-11). In this particular case study I believe that all aspects of justice need to be discussed in order to fully obtain overall environmental justice for the Standing Rock Sioux tribe. For there is not one aspect of justice that is actively being represented in this case study. The three concepts of justice for the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe will be approached through
Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, s 2, Part I of the Constitution Act, 1982, being Schedule B to the Canada Act 1982 (UK), 1982, c 11.
Now, sustainable development and quality of life are crucial to the well being of our nation. Thus, I have pondered many a year on this very important matter and have consulted a very knowing Canadian of my acquaintance at the World Wildlife Fund (WWF). The amount of natural resources in this country being usually reckoned infi...
The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms was enacted under the Pierre Trudeau government on April 17, 1982. According to Phillip Bryden, “With the entrenchment of the Charter into the Canadian Constitution, Canadians were not only given an explicit definition of their rights, but the courts were empowered to rule on the constitutionality of government legislation” (101). Prior to 1982, Canada’s central constitutional document was the British North America Act of 1867. According to Kallen, “The BNA Act (the Constitution Act, 1867) makes no explicit reference to human rights” (240). The adoption of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms significantly transformed the operation of Canada’s political system. Presently, Canadians define their needs and complaints in human rights terms. Bryden states, “More and more, interest groups and minorities are turning to the courts, rather than the usual political processes, to make their grievances heard” (101). Since it’s inception in 1982 the Charter has become a very debatable issue. A strong support for the Charter remains, but there also has been much criticism toward the Charter. Academic critics of the Charter such as Robert Martin believe that the Charter is doing more harm than good, and is essentially antidemocratic and UN-Canadian. I believe that Parliament’s involvement in implementing the Charter is antidemocratic, although, the Charter itself represents a democratic document. Parliament’s involvement in implementing the Charter is antidemocratic because the power of the executive is enhanced at the expense of Parliament, and the power of the judiciary is enhanced at the expense of elected officials, although, the notwithstanding clause continues to provide Parliament with a check on...
The Charter of Rights and Freedoms has fundamentally shaped Canadian society since its inception through the Constitution Act of 1982. Promising egalitarian, linguistic, religious as well as other basic rights, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms is one of the primary doctrines in which Canadian law is founded upon. Many have argued that the advent of the Charter has transformed Canadian society into one that is preoccupied with that of rights. The rise in social movements, specifically in areas of women’s rights, indigenous rights and homosexual rights, are indicative of this. The Charter has created a divide amongst those who believe that this rise in a “rights culture” is ultimately beneficial if not necessary for Canadian society, especially in preserving the voices of the marginalized citizenry who until recently remained invisible in the eyes of parliament, and those who believe that Canada as nation has become preoccupied with preserving the right of gays, lesbians, women and other minority groups that it has sacrificed its majoritarian values. The word preoccupation, especially used in this context, holds a negative connotation suggesting some sort of obsession, and to describe Canada as a nation “preoccupied” with rights is an overstatement. Canada’s recent Charter revolution has often been seen as a means by which minority groups enact their own changes which may or may not be seen as desirable by a majority of people. However, because the Charter is important in preserving the rights of marginalized or minority groups, this can ultimately be beneficial for those whose world views have historically been persecuted. The subsequent paragraphs will further discuss how Canada’s recent Charter revolution has transformed Canada...
The Criminal Process in Environmental Regulation. (n.d.). UH Law. Retrieved April 6, 2014, from http://www.law.uh.edu/faculty/thester/courses/Environmental-Practicum-2014/syllabus/chap6.pdf
...ty. It is available to reflect the social values of a society such as new concepts of justice. The law Reform Commission of Canada is persistently submitting legal proposals that can be used to improve a society and it also serves as a crucial role to the structure of law and the government and the Canadian Criminal Justice System. A proposal that has drawn a lot of debate is the idea of whether environmental destruction and maltreatment should be criminalized. After examining the given themes, environmental harm should not be considered a crime. The undesirable outcomes of criminalizing environmental harm outweigh the positives of criminalizing such a reform. Although the environment affects people’s lives, so do the laws and regulations. This crime is too broad and may result in more harm than good in the Canadian society and the Canadian Criminal Justice System.
Von Oppenfield, Rolf R. Thomas F. P. Sullivan, ed. "Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act." Environmental Law Handbook. 19th ed. New York: Government Institutes, 2007. 773-819.
* Fritsch, Albert J. Environmental Ethics: Choices for Concerned Citizens. Garden City: Anchor Press-Doubleday, 1980.
...nces of habitual ecological legal principles. This is mostly so because environmental law itself is of moderately recent vintage, and as a result there has been little time for dependable state perform to enlarge, either in rejoinder to solemn declarations by IGOs or from side to side the all-purpose reception of norms set out in many-sided treaties. On the other hand, the processes described above have in additional areas, and in exacting that of human rights, been particularly creative in the formation of customary law, and there is consequently every cause to wait for that the similar will apply in admiration of ecological principles. http://www.unu.edu/unupress/unupbooks/uu25ee/uu25ee0a.htm References http://www.law.cornell.edu/topics/international.html http://indylaw.indiana.edu/library/InternatlLaw1.htm http://www.unu.edu/unupress/unupbooks/uu25ee/uu25ee0a.htm