Ecojustice Canada
[10] Based on the joint panel's "positive environmental assessment", the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) also authorized a "key water permit" for the KOS site.[11] In the spring of 2007, Ecojustice (then Sierra Legal) launched legal action on behalf of a "coalition of environmental groups"—"Sierra Club of Canada, Pembina Institute, Prairie Acid Rain Coalition and Toxics Watch Society"[11]—in Canada's Federal Court to overturn the regulatory approval,[10] saying that "the project would destroy huge tracts of boreal forest and muskeg in the province's northern regions."[11] The Pembina Institute's Simon Dyer said that the "joint panel has rubber-stamped another oil sands mega-project in the absence of clear answers about how to restore wetlands, rehabilitate toxic tailings ponds, protect migratory bird populations, or address escalating greenhouse gas pollution."[10] In early March, when a federal judge ruled that the "federal-provincial assessment panel approved the Kearl development without adequately explaining its rationale,"[10] the DFO revoked the KOS water permit.He said that, the "federal government missed a real opportunity to show they're serious about dealing with climate change" by not including provisions for adequate "greenhouse-gas mitigation", without which this project would be "contributing to a growing problem over the next 50 years"."[22][23] In a May 14, 2019 CBC News article, Environmental Defence's Julia Levin and Ecojustice lawyer, Joshua Ginsberg, expressed concern that proposed amendments to Bill C-69 would favour industry over the environment.[24] Alberta Premier Jason Kenney's one-year $2.5 million Public Inquiry into Anti-Alberta Energy Campaigns, which he announced on July 4, 2019,[25][26] is led by a forensic accountant, Steve Allan, with a "mandate to investigate foreign-funded efforts".[27] Kenney cited "the intrepid reporting of journalist Vivian Krause", who has spent ten years examining foreign funding of Canadian environmental non-profit organizations (ENGOs) when he made his announcement.[31] The Ecojustice "lawsuit also alleges that inquiry commissioner Steve Allan was a donor to the UCP leadership campaign of Doug Schweitzer, now Alberta’s justice minister, who appointed him to the job.