Workshop: The Legal Toolkit October 27, 2015

Sustainability Network, Ecojustice and the Canadian Environmental Law Association Present:

The Legal Toolkit

Join us on Tuesday October 27th at the Sustainability Network offices in Toronto for this one-day training session. The workshop will be hosted by John Swaigen of Ecojustice who has designed the session to educate nonprofits active in the environmental field about the legal tools available to protect our air, water, land, and human health.

The workshop will help you to understand what laws and policies exist to protect the environment and how to use them effectively as well as the opportunities provided by law to participate in government decision-making. It will also help you to understand where the legal framework for environmental protection is absent, incomplete or otherwise inadequate so that you can work to obtain stronger laws and policies.

Participants will receive a nuts and bolts overview of the laws that protect our environment. We’ll have legal experts covering a wide variety of key topics including:

• “Soft law” remedies – Federal Auditor General petitions, submissions on enforcement matters (SEMs) to the Commission for Environmental Cooperation, Freedom of Information requests.
  Robert Moyer, Director, Submissions on Enforcement Matters, Commission for Environmental Cooperation Secretariat; Hugh Benevides, Legal Officer, Commission for Environmental Cooperation Secretariat; and John Swaigen, Staff Lawyer, Ecojustice.

• Environmental Assessment: the [dead] letter of the law.
  Joseph Castrilli, Staff Lawyer, Canadian Environmental Law Association.

• Where the Rubber Hits the Road: How tribunals, Cabinet Ministers and bureaucrats apply environmental law, and how the courts fit in.
  Charles Hatt, Staff Lawyer, Ecojustice.

• Private prosecutions: “Taking the law into your own hands”.
  Ramani Nadarajah, Staff Lawyer, Canadian Environmental Law Association.

• Torts: What they are and how to protect the environment against them.
  Richard Lindgren, Staff Lawyer, Canadian Environmental Law Association.

• Charter Challenges – Using the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms to protect the environment and human health.
  Ian Miron, Staff Lawyer, Ecojustice.

• Land use planning laws and protection of the environment.
  Laura Bowman, Staff Lawyer and Eastern Program Manager, Ecojustice.

• Using Ontario’s Environmental Bill of Rights.
  Richard Lindgren, Staff Lawyer, Canadian Environmental Law Association.

Participants will also have an opportunity to engage in small group discussions to apply the day’s learnings to a fact situation in consultation with some participating lawyers.

REGISTER