Supreme Court of Canada decisions have defined a general framework for the "duty to consult" Aboriginal peoples and accommodate their concerns over natural resource development, but anticipate the details of that framework will be expanded upon in the future. Aboriginal Consultation, Environmental Assessment, and Regulatory Review in Canada offers a paradigm that advances that discussion. It proposes an integrated and robust planning model for natural resource extraction allowing Aboriginal peoples, industry, governments, tribunals, and the Courts to all make contributions to reconciliation in the context of sustainable development and environmental protection. Kirk Lambrecht surveys the law of actual and asserted Aboriginal rights and historical and modern Treaty rights in Canada and discusses the national and international purposes of environmental assessment and regulatory review. He appraises the fundamental principles of Supreme Court of Canada jurisprudence defining aboriginal consultation and accommodation as a constitutional imperative and uses case studies involving the National Energy Board to demonstrate how integrated process has evolved over time. Finally he offers general conclusions on the practical utility, and outstanding challenges, involving an integrated planning paradigm.

Beginning with the Grand Rapids Dam in the 1960s, hydroelectric development has dramatically altered the social, political, and physical landscape of northern Manitoba. The Nelson River has been cut up into segments and fractured by a string of dams, for which the Churchill River had to be diverted and new inflow points from Lake Winnipeg created to manage their capacity. Historic mighty rapids have shrivelled into dry river beds. Manitoba Hydro's Keeyask dam and generating station will expand the existing network of 15 dams and 13,800 km of transmission lines. In Our Backyard tells the story of the Keeyask dam and accompanying development on the Nelson River from the perspective of Indigenous peoples, academics, scientists, and regulators. It builds on the rich environmental and economic evaluations documented in the Clean Environment Commission’s public hearings on Keeyask in 2012. It amplifies Indigenous voices that environmental assessment and regulatory processes have often failed to incorporate and provides a basis for ongoing decision-making and scholarship relating to Keeyask and resource development more generally. It considers cumulative, regional, and strategic impact assessments; Indigenous worldviews and laws within the regulatory and decision-making process; the economics of development; models for monitoring and management; consideration of affected species; and cultural and social impacts. With a provincial and federal regulatory regime that is struggling with important questions around the balance between development and sustainability, and in light of the inherent rights of Indigenous people to land, livelihoods, and self-determination, In Our Backyard offers critical reflections that highlight the need for purposeful dialogue, principled decision making, and a better legacy of northern development in the future.

Current and expanding human activities are moving us towards ever deeper unsustainability. While there is no single, simple means of reversing the invidious biophysical trends and redirecting the distribution of benefits, one necessary step is to approach every new and renewed undertaking as an opportunity to deliver maximum multiple, mutually reinforcing, fairly distributed and lasting gains. Finding the best options for enhancing such gains by comparing alternatives, addressing all the key requirements for progress towards sustainability and avoiding significant adverse effects, is the essential purpose of sustainability assessment. This book addresses the theory and practice of sustainability assessment applications, drawing from experiences globally in a variety of sectors and presenting lessons learned. Diverse international case studies from professionals and academics demonstrate progress so far in exploring openings, testing approaches to application and establishing best practice. The book illustrates means of specifying generic sustainability criteria for the context of particular applications, reports on the resulting insights, and examines the barriers and opportunities for further advances. This book is an important resource for students, academics and professionals in the areas of Governance, Environmental Assessment, Planning and Policy Making, Corporate Social Responsibility and Applied Sustainability.

Federal agencies have taken steps to include the public in a wide range of environmental decisions. Although some form of public participation is often required by law, agencies usually have broad discretion about the extent of that involvement. Approaches vary widely, from holding public information-gathering meetings to forming advisory groups to actively including citizens in making and implementing decisions. Proponents of public participation argue that those who must live with the outcome of an environmental decision should have some influence on it. Critics maintain that public participation slows decision making and can lower its quality by including people unfamiliar with the science involved. This book concludes that, when done correctly, public participation improves the quality of federal agencies' decisions about the environment. Well-managed public involvement also increases the legitimacy of decisions in the eyes of those affected by them, which makes it more likely that the decisions will be implemented effectively. This book recommends that agencies recognize public participation as valuable to their objectives, not just as a formality required by the law. It details principles and approaches agencies can use to successfully involve the public.

The third edition of an annual volume of commentary on Canadian innovation, science, and environment (ISE) policies and institutions.