Summary#
Bill 23 would create an Environmental Bill of Rights for New Brunswick. It would recognize a legal right to a healthy and ecologically balanced environment and create new ways for residents to participate in environmental decisions, request investigations, and bring certain court actions.
The bill is intended to improve environmental protection, government accountability, public participation, and protection for workers who report or act on environmental harm.
- Every New Brunswick resident, including children, would have a right to a healthy and ecologically balanced environment.
- The government would have a duty to protect that right, especially for children and other vulnerable groups.
- The government would have to provide public participation in many environmental decisions and create a public environmental registry.
- A new Environmental Rights Commissioner would review government compliance, investigate alleged legal breaches, advise the public, and report to the Legislative Assembly.
- Two residents could request a review of a policy, law, regulation, permit, licence, or similar government document.
- Residents could bring certain environmental court actions without showing that they were directly affected. Employees could also complain about reprisals for taking protected environmental actions.
The material provides only the original bill. No amendments are identified as adopted.
What it means for you#
- Residents: You would have a legal right to a healthy and ecologically balanced environment. The bill does not set specific air, water, pollution, or emissions limits by itself.
- Public participation: The government would have to provide effective, informed, accessible, and timely opportunities for public input on environmental policies, laws, regulations, and government permits or approvals.
- Environmental information: A public registry would provide information about proposals, decisions, actions, and events that could affect the environment or children’s environmental health.
- Requests for review: Any two residents who have lived continuously in New Brunswick for at least one year could ask the Commissioner to review whether a policy, law, regulation, permit, licence, or similar document should be changed or removed. The Commissioner must report on the application within 90 days, including any action the minister has taken or plans to take.
- Requests for investigation: Any two qualifying residents could request an investigation into an alleged breach of a law, regulation, or government instrument covered by future regulations. The Commissioner would investigate unless the application is frivolous or vexatious and would make a recommendation to the minister.
- Court actions: Any resident could seek judicial review (a court review of a government decision) in an environmental-rights matter, even without being directly affected. A resident could also bring a civil action against a person whose breach of provincial environmental requirements has caused, or is about to cause, environmental harm.
- Farm operations: A court action about odour, noise, dust, vibration, light, smoke, or another disturbance from a farm operation would generally require the person to first use the Farm Practices Review Board process.
- Workers: Employees could complain to the Labour and Employment Board if an employer dismissed, disciplined, threatened, harassed, or otherwise penalized them for taking specified environmental actions. The employer would have to prove that the action was not a prohibited reprisal.
- Indigenous peoples: The bill says it must uphold Aboriginal and treaty rights and promote the rights recognized in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. It also refers specifically to the Mi’kmaq, Wolastoqey, and Peskotomuhkati peoples.
The bill would not start automatically. Its provisions would begin on dates set by proclamation.
Expenses#
The bill would create a new public office and new government duties, but the source material does not provide a cost estimate.
- Government costs: Likely costs include the Commissioner’s salary and benefits, staff, investigations, public education, reports, registry development, and public consultations.
- Legal and administrative costs: Government departments, municipalities, businesses, and other organizations could face additional costs from responding to reviews, investigations, public consultations, or court cases.
- Court costs: Courts could award costs in environmental actions. The bill does not set application fees or new fines.
- Damages: If a court awards damages under the bill, the money would go to the government for environmental restoration or improvement.
- Business and farm costs: The bill could increase compliance and legal costs where activities are challenged. The amount would depend on how the law, regulations, and courts apply it.
- Fiscal estimate: No publicly available information.
Proponents' View#
- The bill appears intended to give residents a clearer legal basis for seeking government action on environmental problems.
- A public registry and required consultations could make environmental decisions more transparent and give residents earlier access to information.
- The Commissioner could provide an independent review of government compliance and investigate alleged breaches.
- Broader access to courts could allow environmental harm to be challenged even when no individual resident can show direct personal harm.
- Protection from workplace reprisals could make it safer for employees to report environmental concerns or help enforce environmental rules.
- The bill’s stated goals include protecting children’s environmental health, biodiversity, Indigenous rights, and the interests of future generations.
Opponents' View#
- The bill does not clearly define the minimum environmental quality that would be required to meet the right to a healthy and ecologically balanced environment. This could lead to disputes about what the right requires.
- Many important details would be left to future regulations, including registry content, consultation procedures, and which laws could be investigated. The bill’s practical effect is therefore partly unclear.
- The new review and court-access rules could increase legal and administrative burdens for government departments, municipalities, businesses, and farmers.
- The Commissioner would have broad access to government information and the power to require evidence under oath, while some government deliberations and legally privileged information would remain protected. The balance between oversight and confidentiality may raise questions.
- The bill allows residents to bring court actions even when they are not directly affected. This could improve access to justice, but it may also increase the number of legal challenges.
- The bill gives the Commissioner power to make recommendations and reports, but it does not clearly require ministers or the government to follow those recommendations.