NORTH BAY - Kerrie Blaise views her role in the Canadian legal system as giving an amplified voice to people who don’t have one.
For the founder and lawyer at Legal Advocates for Nature's Defence (LAND), joining a big legal firm after graduation to look after big corporate interests just wasn’t an appealing proposition.
She was more interested in understanding the voices that were going silent by virtue of the system.
Equal access to justice is a real issue in Northern Ontario, Blaise said. Only two per cent of all the lawyers in the province reside in Northern Ontario. And most people can’t afford one.
“Who is either least able to access legal services from a financial standpoint or who is most at risk from an existing harm or something new that might come up down the road. That’s how we prioritize our work,” said Blaise, an Osgoode Hall graduate who was called to the bar in 2016.
A year and half ago, Blaise established LAND, a North Bay-area law firm that bills itself as the only environmental law non-profit in Northern Ontario. Their mandate is to protect nature, uphold Indigenous rights, and defend the health and well-being of communities against environmental injustices.
Her firm’s coverage area spans Northern Ontario, subject to their capacity and ability to get to the most remote corners of the region.
“We have some interesting ways to keep costs down,” said Blaise.
There are no business class flights to reach clients. Instead they opt for the most affordable and readily available means of transportation, be it a seat on the Polar Bear Express to the James Bay coast or driving a windswept ice road to reach a remote community.
“To practise environmental law on the public interest side, you have to be a little creative when required in finding ways to make ends meet,” she said.
Pursuing a career in environmental law is not a glamorous or lucrative career path.
Blaise and her team of three run a no-frills shop that commits a huge chunk of time toward outreach and engagement, especially with Indigenous communities.
“If you’re going to build those relationships, it means not flying in to do presentation for two hours on what is an environmental assessment and flying out.”
At the time of this interview in July, Blaise was packing up to head north to CreeFest, an annual celebration of Indigenous music, tradition and culture, to set up an information booth to showcase their services.
“We’re just trying to get people to know us.”
The practice maintains no lavish office digs. Blaise works out of her Callandar home, near North Bay, and her staff all work remotely. Conference space is rented as needed.
LAND is not funded under Ontario’s legal aid system but they do provide free legal services. That means they are in perpetual fundraising mode.
“We just rely on donations and grants.”
Their legal defence fund supports the time paid up front to represent communities in things like negotiations, advise on agreement language, and provide legal advice.
They also have an application into the Law Foundation of Ontario to secure funding to hire a staff lawyer for a one-year contract position.
Unlike bigger Canadian environmental firms, such as Ecojustice, where Blaise briefly interned, LAND is not yet registered as a charity where donations are tax deductible. But it’s something she is striving for within the next couple of years as the practice grows.
So why pursue environmental law?
The London, Ont.-born Blaise points to her childhood and the summers spent with her grandparents in the North Bay area.
“I’ve always been drawn to the natural world. And I truly credit that to growing up here, every summer, on the water.”
During her master’s degree studies in environmental science in Scotland, Blaise developed a keen interest in the impact on marine environments from offshore oil production.
BP’s devastating Deep Water Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010 all but cemented her career path.
“All that was very timely. But having a degree in science didn’t get me anywhere, didn’t get me in the room with decision-makers or governments.
“That’s why I decided to go to law school. I thought maybe that’s a slightly harder-hitting tool. And I’ve loved it ever since.”
The opportunity to present a community case before a tribunal, lobbying a group's concerns before a cabinet minister, or to stage legal clinics to raise public awareness of what rights they already have is what Blaise finds motivating.
“So, how can we inform communities of their rights or even the laws that exist to protect the environment or their health, and then they become the advocate,” said Blaise.
“Because not everything has to go to court,” said Blaise. “Not everything has to go before a decision-maker. There’s a lot the public can do. At least half of my time is spent trying to educate communities about their environmental rights.”
Some of her more recent high-profile work includes a pro bono case in representing Elliot Lake homeowners in federal court against the Canadian government’s regulator, the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, for its refusal to clean up radioactive uranium mine waste found beneath their houses, a case that’s been on the books for decades.
“It always starts with phone call or an email. Someone has a concern and you start looking into it further.”
Blaise and her team don’t hesitate to use their practice as a platform to champion and push for better environmental legislation, such as Bill C-73, the Nature Accountability Act, which, if passed, will help protect 30 per cent of Canada’s land and marine areas by 2030.
By and large, Blaise sees their role in the adversarial system as mostly holding government to account to ensure they are upholding their own laws and abiding by their own regulations.
“Most of the work is overseeing government action, or inaction.”
Down the road, Blaise hopes to grow her practice into a “robust legal team” in adding two or three more lawyers with litigation experience.
“Change doesn't happen overnight and think it’s critical to have lawyers who are attuned to the issues and can respond, because a lot can slip back and the injustices can continue,” said Blaise.
“Those injustices have real, everyday impacts for health. Whether it’s contamination of fish, water, land or air, there are day-to-day health impacts.”
