Stewart Elgie was working with the American Sierra Club Legal Defence Fund in Alaska in March 1989, when the Exxon Valdez oil tanker struck a reef and spilled 35,000 tonnes of crude oil into Prince William Sound.
The disaster threw the young Canadian lawyer into a series of high-profile legal battles to hold Exxon and the government to account. Stewart learned firsthand that the courts could be a powerful and effective avenue for environmental protection.
It also begged the question: Who would be nature’s lawyer in Canada? Enter Sierra Legal Defence Fund.
Thanks to the critical support of early champions who rallied behind Stewart, the Sierra Legal Defence Fund — now Ecojustice — set up shop in 1990.
At the time, there was no environmental organizations Canadians could count on to take government and polluters to court and hold them to account. No one was sure if the tactic would work in a Canadian context. Any doubt was soon quelled by legal wins.
Ecojustice’s first major lawsuit illustrates the crucial role we have come to play. In a case that eventually reached the Supreme Court of Canada, Ecojustice lawyers fought a proposed mega-dam project on Alberta’s Oldman River and won what is heralded as one of the most significant environmental law victories in Canada.
The groundbreaking decision opened with an acknowledgment that “the protection of the environment has become one of the major challenges of our time.” And it established the legal precedent requiring environmental assessment for most major development projects across Canada. By 1992, Ecojustice lawyers had brought environmental awareness to Canada’s highest court.
What began as the brainchild of one lawyer has today become the work of generations of lawyers — and thousands of supporters who share our vision of a healthy, thriving environment protected by strong, well-enforced laws.
Today, Ecojustice works from offices in Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto, Ottawa and Halifax. Across Canada, we’re on the ground building relationships with the people we serve, fighting issues that matter in local communities, and scoring legal wins that have far-reaching impacts.