Canadian Lawyer

12 M A R C H 2 0 1 8 w w w . C A N A D I A N L a w y e r m a g . c o m \ AT L A N T I C \ C E N T R A L \ N O RT H \ W E S T REGIONAL WRAP-UP ENVIRONMENTAL GROUPS IN B.C. PUSH TO CHANGE RESOURCE LAWS B .C. environmental justice groups want teeth put back into provincial statutes governing natural resource exploitation and new regulations that oust the fox from the hen house. Both West Coast Environmental Law and Ecojustice have made submissions before the B.C. government's review of regulatory professional reliance claiming the interpretation of natural resource industry regulations are in the hands of professionals, such as engineers, foresters, geologists and biologists, who are paid by a timber, oil and gas, development or mining company. "The government has off-loaded to the profes- sionals," says Andrew Gage, WCEL staff counsel, who also blogged that "if government establishes a standard but leaves it to industry professionals to interpret it, then even well-intentioned professionals may start to interpret ambiguities in favour of clients, rather than the public interest." Both WCEL and the Ecojustice want to see government establish qualified professional lists that determine who can make these decisions and also have government provide an oversight on the quality of work. Gage says that if a conflict arises or the work is not unbiased, the qualified professional's name is removed from the list. "The company would pay for the work," he says, but the report would be owned by government — a critical point for public challenges. Government-owned reports have greater transparency. "But, when a private professional is hired to determine what is going to happen to lands — and members of the community might be concerned about issues such as their water supply — they are told that it is a private report and it is not available," he says. Ecojustice lawyer and executive director Devon Page, who submitted a brief to the public review, says the issue goes much deeper and points to a decade of deregulation under the previous Liberal government, which attempted to streamline bureaucracy. He says statutes governing resource development that once had sections spelling out "must and shall" responsibilities for users have had that wording deleted. As a result, any court chal- lenges fall flat as there is no standard to enforce. This, Page says, places it into the judgment of practising professionals under the professional reliance model. Page says the case Western Canada Wilderness Committee v. British Columbia (Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Opera- Andrew Gage I t started as a guest lecture by the Uni- versity of Calgary law school's judge- in-residence to about 100 second-year law students. But when that January lecture was over, the extraordinarily successful career of Alberta Court of Queen's Bench Justice Kristine Eidsvik had hit a sudden and potentially disastrous speed bump. In answer to a student's question, Justice Eidsvik mentioned her involve- ment in the judicial dispute resolution process, an initiative in which opposing parties meet in a pre-trial conference led by a judge. It is part of an effort to speed up the chronically slow court system. While the university lecture was apparently not recorded, Eidsvik sub- sequently acknowledged in an apology that she made a remark "that was not appropriate and could be construed as insensitive to racial minorities. . . . I frankly feel sick about it." Students say Eidsvik in her lecture said she felt uncomfortable walking into a JDR room "full of big, dark people." Eidsvik resigned her academic year appoint- ment as judge-in-residence the next day. But that was not the end of the matter. Two complaints have been filed with the Canadian Judicial Council. The CJC's conduct committee could begin a review of Eidsvik's remarks as early as this month. An unsigned letter endorsed by "concerned faculty members" at the Uni- versity of Calgary and published on the law school's blog noted: "Legal educators are responsible to ensure that law school admissions and classrooms redress rather than reinforce inequality." The reference to the CJC's conduct committee cannot be a happy occasion for Eidsvik. Memories are still fresh in the Alberta judiciary about the resignation of Justice Robin Camp last year. He quit the bench after a CJC investigation into his careless question to an alleged rape victim testifying before him. He now famously asked from the bench why she could not just keep her "knees together." — GE Law profs file complaint after Alberta judge's racial remarks

• Cover