A year before the COP15 Biodiversity organized in Montreal, the Saint Lawrence River saw nearly 320 liquefied natural gas Super LNG tankers passing between its belugas every year. The LNG Quebec project posed a major risk to biodiversity: North America’s third-largest river, which connects to the Great Lakes, drains a quarter of the world’s freshwater reserves, not to mention the thousands of species of plants, invertebrates, fish, and birds mammals that live there. Finally, in July 2021, the site was buried by Quebec Minister of the Environment Benoit Charette.

“People prefer to pollute”

Had the Saint Lawrence River had legal personality, such a large-scale project would not have been possible because the river could have defended itself in court. The initiative was launched by the International Observatory for the Rights of Nature (OIDN). Saint Laurent Alliancebrings together municipalities, scientists and associations to coordinate civil society and to demand a corresponding law from the federal government.

Today, in the name of the principle, a Quebecer wishing to file a complaint about environmental damage must be directly affected by that degradation “Right to a healthy environment”. If the St. Lawrence were granted corporate status, as the Whanganui River in New Zealand or Turag river in Bangladesh, their representatives could directly challenge industrial projects that threaten their integrity.

Many companies see this as the promise of cascading recourse to some of their projects. But for lawyer Yenny Vega Cárdenas, president of the OIDN, it must also be seen as an economic opportunity. “It would be a blue economy fuel, we have many industries in Quebec working on water purification and their advanced technology is not bought: it stays in the boxes because people prefer to pollute the environment. If the river could defend itself, companies would be forced to upgrade and invest.” advances the Canadian-Colombian lawyer.

“Uncharted Territory”

It is primarily federal law that governs the St. Lawrence River. It is therefore primarily up to the Parliament of Canada to pass a government or member bill to recognize its legal personality. Convinced by the OIDN, federal MP for the New Democratic Party (Left) Alexandre Boulerice made legal recognition of Saint-Laurent the spearhead of his 2019 re-election campaign. “What would that result in? I don’t know, he immediately admits before continuing: We’re in innovation, it’s novelty, we’re entering some uncharted territory. Incongruity of Canada’s parliamentary system, he won’t even have time to defend his public interest bill – the name given to the bill carried by a MP in Canada. In the order of examination of the texts in place 252ᵉ by lot, his mandate as deputy will end long before that. Alexandre Boulerice does not despair: “We’re making the issue public, that’s the most important thing.”

Hence the interest in putting civil society pressure on the federal government, which could introduce a similar bill itself and speed up the process. Yenny Vega Cárdenas multiplies the conferences on the topic during the various COPs and hopes for the future support of the Quebec government: “We were pleasantly surprised to see the Quebec Minister of the Environment at our panel on the Saint Lawrence River and the Nile at COP27 in Egypt. He was there, he heard us, it’s a first step. But we wish he wasn’t just an ear from afar and more openly involved in the fight. When asked several times, the Federal Environment Ministry did not answer our questions.

Yenny Vega Cárdenas and Alexandre Boulerice’s fight is also going through the international community. As part of COP15, some countries are attempting to include recognition of this legal status in the final declaration, in the form of a mention in the Theory of Change chapter recognizing the recognition “Mother Earth’s Rights and the Rights of Nature”. This applies in particular to New Zealand, Ecuador and Bolivia, which have already legally recognized certain natural entities in their territories. The European Union has not yet issued an official statement on the subject, although the Spanish Mar Menor has only just been recognized as a legal entity. If the mention were included in the final text of COP15, it would provide additional leverage for local initiatives such as the Alliance Saint-Laurent.