Ecojustice Canada (formerly "Sierra Legal Defence Fund" prior to Sept. 2007), is a Canadian non-profit environmental law firm that uses litigation to defend and protect the environment.[1]
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Ecojustice believes all Canadians have a fundamental right to enjoy air, land and water that is clean, healthy and safe. Ecojustice represents environmental groups and concerned citizens who feel these rights have been infringed upon by government decisions at any level, or by industries or corporations.
Ecojustice aims to set legal precedents that will ensure a strong and thriving environment for humans and wildlife alike, both for present generations and generations to come. The organization takes on cases at any level, from lower courts to the Supreme Court of Canada.
While Ecojustice fights battles at municipal and grassroots levels, the organization also plays a role in the strategic development of new environmental laws, often in cooperation with other environmental or conservation groups. Ecojustice works hard at seeing that laws are always an accurate reflection of how the world has developed and changed, and it sees to it that those laws are enshrined and respected within the Canadian legal system.
In 1990, Ecojustice founder Stewart Elgie recruited a number of like-minded lawyers to form the board of what was then called the Sierra Legal Defence Fund. Lawyer Greg McDade was soon hired as Ecojustice's first executive director. Setting up a modest office in Vancouver’s downtown eastside, Greg hired Mark Haddock and the two set out as environmental pioneers. As Greg said at the time, Sierra Legal Defence Fund was about “hacking out trails where Canadian law has not often gone.” The pair offered free legal services to the environmental community. Within a month of opening, the organization was taking logging giants to court in a quest to protect ancient forests and threatened species such as the marbled murrelet. Groups like the Wilderness Committee and Sierra Club were soon lining up for the organization's services.
A joint Sierra Legal–University of Ottawa environmental law clinic was established in Ottawa, Ontario in January 2007, where Stewart Elgie is currently a Law Professor and associate director of the University of Ottawa’s Institute of the Environment.
Sierra Legal officially changed the name of the organization to Ecojustice Canada in September 2007.
Ecojustice expanded into Alberta with a legal team of two lawyers in 2008.
Ecojustice has acted as legal representation for environmental advocacy groups such as: