Resources

Rodney Hayley has been appointed by the University of Victoria as “Professor of Law and Lawson Lundell Practitioner in Residence.” His two year appointment takes effect January 1, 2013. In this position, Hayley will teach Civil Procedure, Class Actions and Mass Litigation, and a course he is designing on legal history entitled “Anti-Asian Laws, 1850 to the Present: Origins, Application, Repeal and Redress.” 

In May, 2008, the Beaver Lake Cree Nation (“BLCN”) filed a lawsuit in the Alberta Court of Queen’s Bench against the governments of Canada and Alberta (Lameman v. Alberta) claiming that the cumulative impacts of development within their core traditional territory had left them with no meaningful way to exercise their treaty rights. BLCN is a Treaty 6 First Nation whose asserted traditional territory stretches across east central Alberta through the in situ oil sands area and the Cold Lake Air Weapons Range.

Lawson Lundell is pleased to announce the launch of the Project Law Blog.  The focus of the blog is on matters relating to environmental assessment and compliance, regulatory matters and aboriginal consultation issues emerging in the law and policy that applies to the development of major projects in Canada.

In a recent contest before the Alberta Energy Resources Conservation Board between the operator of a natural gas storage reservoir and a producer seeking to drill and frack a Basal Quartz vertical oil well in the vicinity of the storage reservoir, the ERCB granted the producer its well licence, subject to conditions. While not specifically addressing any of the potential issues relating to hydraulic fracturing in tight oil reservoirs, there are interesting and useful inferences that can be drawn from the ERCB’s approach to an adjoining mineral owner’s objection to a fracking operation.

John Christian has written "The devil is in the detail: steps mining companies can take to navigate filing requirements for technical reports" published in the May 1-7, 2012 issue of the Business in Vancouver.

On April 17, 2012 the federal government announced its Plan For Responsible Resource Development, setting out further details on steps to implement proposals for streamlining the federal environmental assessment (“EA”) process. This Plan follows on the heels of the federal budget and the Statutory Review of the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, which both suggested that these streamlining reforms would be forthcoming.

William Everett, QC received an Alumni Award of Distinction by the UBC Faculty of Law Alumni Association at the 2012 Law Alumni Acheivement Awards held on April 12, 2012.

On March 29, 2012, Canadian Federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty delivered the government’s 2012 federal budget (the “Budget”). As is typical in Canada, the Budget contained interesting tax policy changes. This article briefly highlights the three most important proposed changes to the thin-cap rules that apply to in-bound Canadian investments.

On March 13, 2012, the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development issued recommendations for improving the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act (CEAA) process.

Chambers Global 2012 recognizes Lawson Lundell in the following practice areas: Aboriginal Law, Environment, Mining, Projects: Mining (Latin America-wide), Pension & Benefits, Employment & Labour, Energy: Power (Regulatory) and Real Estate.