In the News

In September 1988, Winnipeg Free Press reporter Barbara Robson broke a national news story on the proposed Rafferty and Alameda mega dams in Saskatchewan, which would dam water on the Souris River that flows into North Dakota and Manitoba.

A relatively unknown employee in Environment Canada, who had quit her post three months earlier, told Robson she quit because the Brian Mulroney government had not performed a proper federal environmental review of the Rafferty-Alameda project. Rafferty-Alameda had been her file. She claimed Ottawa granted the project an environmental licence in exchange for some political goodies from Grant Devine's government in Saskatchewan. The goodies included relinquishing provincial mineral and water rights on the site of the proposed Grasslands National Park in Saskatchewan, and the translation of Saskatchewan laws into French.

Government officials denied the claim and unloaded on the former Environment Canada employee like hunters in duck hunting season. They tried to destroy her credibility. The employee's name is well-known today. It is Elizabeth May, current Green party leader.

What really happened? The following is an excerpt from Winnipeg Free Press reporter Bill Redekop's new book, Dams of Contention: The Rafferty-Alameda Story and the Birth of Canadian Environmental Law.

The 1980s were still the Wild West in terms of environmental legislation. Governments paid little more than lip service to environmental concerns. The political and legal fight against the Rafferty-Alameda dams would create the first environmental law in Canada.

Jennifer Lannan's fight to bring her husband to Canada appears almost over.

The 30-year-old Saltspring Island woman finally won her battle at an immigration appeal hearing in Vancouver this week, MP Elizabeth May at her side.

May was ecstatic, but Lannan sounds more muted - happy about the result, but frustrated by the route it took to get there.

Elizabeth May hopes to change the government’s copyright legislation as it hits report stage in the House Monday. The Green Party leader has proposed 19 amendments to Bill C-11 in the hopes the government will change its course, specifically on its planned digital lock provisions and fair dealing.

The digital lock elements of C-11 are “excessive” and “too restrictive,” May told iPolitics. They are beyond what’s required in the World Intellectual Property Organization regulations, which are generally broad when it comes to digital locks, she said.

May wants the government to consider changing its bill to allow the Copyright Board to create a system to allow for exceptions on digital locks and taking out the provision that will require students to destroy their course material within 30 days of the end of the class.

Elizabeth May has compiled a breakdown of every change to environmental regulations contained in the budget bill.

“As more and more people are realizing, the Harper Conservatives have packed their so-called budget bill with lots of non-budget items in order to hide them from the public, and even confuse their elected representatives,” said May.  “I decided it was time to itemize the various bills, regulations, policies, and programs that will be affected.”

The Green Party has also set up a hub for information and news about C-38.