Introduction - East Coast Environmental Law - and request to meet

Dear Committee Members,  

My name is Mike Kofahl. I am a staff member of East Coast Environmental Law. I am reaching out today to introduce myself, my colleague, and our organization.  

East Coast Environmental Law is a community-centered non-profit environmental law organization. We envision a future where laws and legal systems protect ecological health and promote environmental and climate justice in Atlantic Canada. In our work, we advocate for progressive environmental laws and policies, provide public legal education, and share our legal skills with individuals, communities, and organizations that are working to prevent or redress environmental harms.  

As an organization, we have a great deal of experience with impact assessments and regional assessments conducted under the   Impact Assessment Act   (as well as provincial environmental impact assessments in the Atlantic region). For instance, we were participants during the first regional assessment that was conducted under the   Impact Assessment Act, the Regional Assessment of Offshore Oil and Gas Exploratory Drilling East of Newfoundland and Labrador. Through this process, we learned a great deal of valuable lessons. For example, we learned how and why certain kinds of participation and engagement opportunities worked or did not work, and gained insight into the kind of roles that an advisory group can take to meaningfully support a regional assessment committee.  

Of course, we also have a great deal of specific knowledge and expertise as environmental lawyers that we look forward to sharing with you. As our organization’s lead for the regional assessment of offshore wind in Nova Scotia, I am hoping to offer the committee with insights into many aspects of marine stewardship and governance. I graduated from Dalhousie’s Schulich School of Law in 2017 with certificates of specialization in environmental law and maritime law; since then, I have focused much of my practice on these areas. In particular, I am quite interested in sharing information and knowledge about the role that cumulative effects assessment will have to help us to understand, or identify gaps in our understanding of, the interactions between offshore wind development, other industrial activities like fishing and shipping, and conservation efforts aimed at protecting our invaluable marine ecosystems.  

I will be working very closely with my colleague, Kostantina (Tina) Northrup, who I have copied on this email. Tina graduated from Dalhousie’s Schulich School of Law in 2019 and has dedicated a large portion of her practice to the areas of human rights within the context of environment and climate justice, laws related to climate change mitigation and adaptation, Aboriginal and Indigenous law, and energy law. Tina has great insights into how electricity is regulated in the Atlantic region and looks to share her knowledge and experience about the role of offshore wind developments within the broader context of energy, a just transition, and climate change.  

We look forward to working with you as the regional assessment process unfolds, and hope that you will feel comfortable to reach out to us when there are opportunities for us to share our knowledge about various legal, policy, and community matters related to offshore wind development. To that point, we would find it helpful for our early participation in the regional assessment to have an opportunity to meet with you, to learn more about the members of your committee, to learn about the kinds of early questions or matters that you are focusing on, and to provide early input into the creation of a public participation plan. We would be happy to schedule a meeting with you over the coming weeks to discuss.  

We look forward to hearing from you soon.  

Sincerely,

Mike