Dear Friend
It is a real honour to introduce myself to you as EBI's acting executive director. Having cheered the organization since its inception, I am thrilled to now have the opportunity to become more deeply involved in its activities.
We've come a long way since that Saturday morning back in 1996 when my colleagues and I made the decision to set up an organization devoted exclusively to enforcing environmental laws. Before then, most environmentalists believed that it was futile to mount private prosecutions against polluters. The standard of proof required by the courts seemed impossibly rigorous. No environmental group had ever mounted a private prosecution against a polluter that led to a strong conviction and a meaningful fine. No polluter had ever pled guilty to avoid facing an environmental group in court.
Today, thanks to EBI, all that has changed. Our investigations have provided evidence that meets the courts' high standards and have been instrumental in obtaining convictions of egregious polluters. Our investigations have also convinced government agencies to lay their own charges against polluters.
More important, even when they haven't resulted in convictions, or when convictions have been overturned on appeal, our investigations have prompted clean-ups. In Kingston, for example, where we discovered toxic leachate pouring out of a former waste dump and into the Cataraqui River, clean-up began the day charges were laid.
Because of our successes, more and more local environmental groups have come to us for help. We have trained them - along with new groups that we have helped establish - to obtain evidence, make formal complaints, and, when necessary, prosecute polluters in their own communities. And through our Citizens Guide to Environmental Investigation and Private Prosecution, posted on our web site, we have made our expertise available to concerned citizens all across the country.
Our roster is now fuller than ever, with dozens of investigations underway into wrongdoing by governments and corporations. We will be focussing on two major cases in the coming months. In Moncton, after sampling toxic landfill leachate that is contaminating the Petitcodiac River, we prepared a brief documenting the pollution and submitted it to Environment Canada. As a result, Environment Canada has laid charges against the city and related engineers. The case will be going to trial in the new year. In Montreal, we will continue to work on cleaning up the Technoparc, from which PCBs, PAHs, and other toxins are seeping into the St. Lawrence River. Leading us through these cases will be Mark Mattson, our former executive director who will remain with us as both our chief investigator and our counsel.
I remember the years before EBI was established, when we used to dream about the then-untested powers of citizens to stop pollution. With your support, EBI has helped make that dream a reality. I hope that you share my pride in this extraordinary achievement, and that you are able to make a generous donation to support our ongoing work.
Signature
Elizabeth Brubaker
Acting Executive Director
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Make cheque payable to:The Environmental Bureau of Investigation
225 Brunswick Avenue
Toronto, Ontario M5S 2M6The Environmental Bureau of Investigation is a charitable organization,
federally registered in Canada. Reg. No. 10730 5146 RR0001