The significant growth in public commitment to environmental protection has profoundly affected the risk profile of today’s businesses. Heenan Blaikie’s Environmental team recognizes that the dynamic nature of international, federal, provincial and municipal environmental regimes, and related judicial determinations, require legal advice.
Changing compliance requirements and enforcement mechanisms, together with the evolving roles of such stakeholders as customers, investors, neighbours and Aboriginal groups, present corporations with new challenges in all of the industries served by the Heenan Blaikie Environmental team. The team’s detailed knowledge of environmental law, as applied to a wide range of industrial sectors, allows us to provide effective advice and representation with respect to compliance issues, environmental liabilities, permitting and risk management as well as general support in major development projects and commercial transactions.
Our clients operate in a wide range of industries, such as the following:
- renewable energy – including nuclear, hydro, wind, solar, biomass and waste
- oil and gas
- electricity
- forestry and forest products
- manufacturing
- real estate development
- mining
- transportation
- financial services
- health care
- telecommunications
- retailing
- agriculture
- environmental services and technology
Services Overview
The team brings an integrated, proactive approach to the management and resolution of environmental issues in transactional, regulatory and litigation contexts. We understand that environmental risks often demand solutions and strategies customized to the needs and circumstances of each client. In developing such solutions, we draw upon our extensive experience in the following areas:
- Corporate and commercial transactions – environmental due diligence, negotiating and enforcing environmental agreements and advising on environmental risk components of transactions, structuring and negotiating transactions and agreements to reduce and allocate risk and liability, including the management of such risks, and the negotiation, submission where required by law, and legal monitoring of remediation agreements and remedial action plans
- Environmental certification and operational risk management – development and implementation of internal Environmental Management Systems (including ISO14001, LEED, etc.) and advice on audit, corporate governance and other internal mechanisms to comply with Canadian judicial standards and statutory requirements and to manage and limit risk and liability for corporations and their directors, officers and employees
- Permitting and regulatory compliance – advice on regulatory requirements and compliance issues, including:
- Permit requirements
- Air, land and water impacts
- Wetlands, flood-risk areas and watercourse impacts
- Registration and recognition of remedial activities, including site assessments (such as Phase I and II assessments), management of contaminated lands and remediation projects
- Private nuisance issues
- Assessment, management, storage, transportation, recycling and disposal of waste and hazardous substances
- Responses to discharges, spills and illegal emissions
- Identifying and managing directors’ and officers’ liability
- Inspection, investigation and other enforcement measures
- Industrial site decommissioning and change of use authorizations– legal advice regarding submission of decommissioning and change of use plans and studies, and risk assessments, to meet statutory and regulatory requirements
- Environmental emergency and crisis management – advice on design and implementation of response plans; management of regulatory and civil liability risk and communications with regulators and other stakeholders
- Litigation – advice and representation in mediation, arbitration, litigation in civil, regulatory, judicial review and quasi-criminal proceedings before provincial and federal courts, arbitration panels and administrative tribunals
- Environmental assessment – planning and implementing assessment processes, including representation before regulatory agencies, commissions and tribunals, under the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act and similar provincial legislation
- Stewardship and similar product and substance control regimes – identify requirements for and assisting in design of programs to comply with recycling, collection of fees and related product management issues (e.g. Blue Box programs, bottle deposits and fees on electronic products)
- Governmental policy and legislative development – communications with regulatory and drafting personnel to optimize the effectiveness of new regulatory proposals
- First Nations and Aboriginal relations – advice and representation concerning duties of consultation and communication and management of relations with Aboriginal groups in matters concerning natural resources, contaminated lands, project development and land use
Organizational Involvement
The members of our Environmental team regularly take part in various conferences, seminars and events dealing with environmental law. Several among them also belong to organizations that are focused on environmental issues, including:
- Canadian Centre for Environmental Arbitration and Mediation
- Clean Air Strategic Alliance – Calgary
- Conseil Patronal de l’Environnement du Québec (CPEQ)
- National Brownfield Association – United States
- National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy – Canada
- Ontario Environment Industry Association
- RÉSEAU environnement – Québec
- Réseau québécois des femmes en environnement
- Society, Environment and Energy Development Studies (SEEDS) – Calgary
- TowerWise Energy Efficiency Action Committee – Toronto