UnnaturalLaw - Updates/Articles

LATEST ARTICLES

July 01, 2004 (Globe and Mail)
This Parliament could be a clean, green machine...

The minority government elected on Monday could be a surprising boon to the majority of Canadians who hold strong environmental values. There is an intriguing parallel with the mid-1960s, when the minority government of Lester Pearson developed social programs that are widely cherished today, including medicare and the Canada Pension Plan ...more

June 11, 2004 (Globe and Mail)
Harper plan to pull plug on Kyoto irrational

Is the Kyoto Protocol irrelevant? Is climate change an environmental scare that we should no longer be concerned about? Should Canada renege on its international commitment to reduce our emissions of the greenhouse gases that are disrupting the planet's climate system? ...more

June 7, 2004 (Globe and Mail)
From cheap and dirty to clean and lean

Canada could really learn a thing or two from the Calgary Flames about using energy efficiently. The Flames have relied for success on the strategic use of energy (along with some superb goaltending). Canada, on the other hand, has a terrible record of wasting energy, an approach that is costing our economy billions of dollars and damaging our environment ...more

April 8 , 2004 (Globe and Mail)
Before you sink your teeth into that burger

These appear to be tough times for meat-eaters in Canada: ostracized by popular movies like Babe, Chicken Run, and The Meatrix (a cult Internet hit); lambasted in the bestselling book Fast Food Nation; fearful of mad-cow disease, avian flu and PCBs in farmed salmon ...more

December 16, 2003 (Globe and Mail)
PM's green credentials are fading
What shade of green? What famous Canadian said: "we will need to abandon the very concept of waste" by shifting from a linear economy, with waste and pollution as end products, to a closed-loop system, patterned after nature, where no waste or pollution is generated? The eye-opening answer is that Canada's new Prime Minister, Paul Martin, made this statement in a speech to the Federation of Canadian Municipalities in 2000 ...more

December 3, 2003
Petition to the Auditor General asking that the loophole allowing the deduction of fines and penalties be closed ...more

November 5 , 2003 (Globe and Mail)
Clean up after yourself
The Supreme Court has just upheld the polluter-pay principle. A pollution tax would drive the message home, says environmental lawyer DAVID BOYD ...more

September 24, 2003 (Globe and Mail)
Look who's driving the green agenda
Auto workers are not generally thought of as being in the vanguard of environmental protection. So it's a surprise that the Canadian Auto Workers union (CAW) is proposing one of Canada's most promising revolutions in environmental policy in years ...more

August 14, 2003 (Globe and Mail)
Low-priced water
It's summertime, so Canadians are watering lawns and gardens, washing cars, and frolicking in swimming pools. We're a water-wealthy nation, so what's the problem? ...more

May 21, 2003 (Globe and Mail)
The greening of Jean Chrétien
In the past year, the Prime Minister has gone from being on par with George Bush to being a parks-creating, Kyoto-embracing paragon ...more

March 28, 2003 (Globe and Mail)
Thanks to a tax loophole, corporate crime does pay
Millions of Canadians struggling with the annual headache of filing their income tax returns will be flabbergasted by the answer to the following question. What do these three companies have in common: a chemical corporation fined $100,000 for dumping toxic effluent into a lake, a brokerage firm fined $500,000 for insider trading, and a manufacturer fined $75,000 for exposing employees to unsafe working conditions ...more

REPORTS

Dr. David Suzuki presented David Boyd's latest report, Sustainability Within a Generation: A new vision for Canada, to Prime Minister Paul Martin and other municipal and federal leaders at a sustainable communities conference hosted by the Federation of Canadian Municipalities in February, 2004.

download the executive summary (PDF):
English (118KB)

or the full report:
English (1MB)
French (2MB)

Wild by Law: A Report Card on Laws Governing Canada's Parks and Protected Areas, and a Blueprint for Making these Laws More Effective

This report card has two primary purposes. The first purpose is to evaluate the adequacy of the laws governing national parks, provincial parks, territorial parks, wilderness areas, ecological reserves, and other protected areas throughout Canada. The second purpose is to provide a blueprint for strengthening these laws by identifying the most effective provisions in existing legislation.

Read the report (PDF: 319 KB)

Northern Wild
Edited by David R. Boyd
David Suzuki Foundation and Greystone Books, 2001

Wilderness is one of the defining features of Canada. It is etched into our collective unconscious, yet we each experience it in unique ways. This beautiful anthology features the work of 20 contemporary Canadian nature writers - from some of Canada’s best-known authors to some promising new talents. The authors explore the intimate relationships between Canadians of differing cultural backgrounds and Canada’s vast natural landscape. More details

Canada vs. The OECD
This study compares Canada's environmental record to the other industrialized nations in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and tracks Canada's progress (or lack thereof) on environmental issues over the past two decades. Twenty-five environmental indicators in ten categories - air, water, energy, biodiversity, waste, climate change, ozone depletion, agriculture, transportation and miscellaneous - are examined. The results prove that Canada has one of the poorest environmental records of the industrialized countries. The primary finding is that for the twenty-five environmental indicators examined, Canada's overall ranking among OECD nations is a dismal 28th out of 29.

Read the full report: www.environmentalindicators.com

CANADA VS. SWEDEN:
AN ENVIRONMENTAL FACE-OFF
Canada and Sweden are widely regarded as among the world's best in the sport of hockey and in the pursuit of environmental excellence. Canada has won more medals than any other nation in Olympic hockey history, although our last gold came in 1952. Sweden won its only gold medal in 1994, beating Canada in a shootout after the teams played to a tie through regulation and a period of overtime.

What happens when Canada and Sweden go head to head to see who has the superior record in protecting the environment? Canada's government claims that "Canada's environmental record is among the best in the world." However, Sweden recently finished first in a study of the sustainability of 180 nations.

Read the full report (344 KB)