Victories – Case Highlights
Beaver Lake Cree Nation filed a constitutional challenge over the impacts of multiple tar sands mines and other industrial development in Beaver Lake Cree territory. They are the first community to ever challenge – and be granted a trial on – the cumulative environmental, social, and cultural impacts of industrial development. A win would force…
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Wild salmon are the backbone of British Columbia. Thanks to sustained efforts led by Indigenous Nations along the Skeena River, the proposed LNG facility on Lelu Island will not be built! After years of growing opposition and legal challenges, Malaysian fossil fuel giant Petronas cancelled its proposal. We congratulate the Gitxsan, Gitanyow and Gitwilgyoots on…
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In a unanimous 2017 decision, the Supreme Court of Canada upheld the plan to protect the majority of the Peel Watershed in northern Yukon. It is a massive victory for Nacho Nyak Dun, Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in, and Vuntut Gwitchin First Nations and cause for environmental celebration on a global scale. Now, the pure rivers running through…
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Canada approved the Northern Gateway pipeline & tankers project in 2014, against the wishes of the majority of citizens and communities in B.C. Over 100 First Nations declared a ban on tar sands pipelines and tankers in their territories, and critical legal challenges were launched to stop the project. An alliance of Indigenous Nations was forged…
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While the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion project ultimately went ahead (subject to further legal challenges), the Indigenous legal challenges led to the voiding of the first approval in 2018, significantly slowing down construction. 59 First Nations (including almost every coastal nation directly affected by tanker traffic, 21 B.C. municipalities including North Vancouver, Victoria, and Burnaby)…
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Tsilhqot’in: Teztan Biny/Fish Lake protected from “New Prosperity” mine In May 2020, the Supreme Court ended a decade-long push by Taseko Mines Ltd. to build an open pit gold/copper mine. The Supreme Court victory crowns a long and exhausting legal battle the Tsilhqot’in fought at every level of the judiciary, fending off Taseko’s multiple appeals,…
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