The Greenpeace Canada Education Fund recently supported the development of The Canadian Law Firm Climate Impact Report, developed by The University of Toronto Law Union (UTLU) and coordinated by the Law Students for Climate Accountability (LSCA).
The report is first-of-its-kind, analyzing the Canadian legal industry’s work for fossil fuel companies, and the role that five of the largest and most influential Canadian law firms play in exacerbating the climate crisis.
The statistics brought to light in the report are stark. These five firms reported facilitating over $618 billion in fossil fuel transactions between 2008 and 2023. McCarthy Tétrault is responsible for an astonishing $174 billion of that figure.
The report also highlights firms’ facilitation of resource extraction by criminalizing Indigenous resistance. For example, Fasken successfully obtained injunctions for Coastal GasLink which ordered the Unist’ot’en Camp, established to prevent unauthorized access to the clan’s land, be dismantled. The land defenders faced three raids by heavily armed police and 19 people are currently facing criminal contempt charges for defying these injunctions.
At the Greenpeace Canada Education Fund, we are proud to support initiatives that continue to uncover the causes and solutions behind our current climate crisis. You can also learn more about this report by reading this short executive summary here.
Sincerely,
Jackie Gallagher