The Environmental Governance Lab, together with the Lawson Climate Institute and the University of Toronto Department of Economics, co-hosted a double book launch featuring Dr. Minh Do (University of Guelph) and Dr. Amy Janzwood (McGill University).

We brought together scholars, students, and members of the broader community for an engaging afternoon focused on two timely new books that examine the politics of environmental governance in Canada from distinct but complementary perspectives.

Dr. Do presented Process as Power: The Legitimacy of Indigenous Consultation in British Columbia Environmental Assessments, which explores how Indigenous consultation is carried out within British Columbia’s environmental assessment process and how these processes become important sites in which the legitimacy of state authority is negotiated and contested.

Dr. Janzwood discussed Mega Pipelines, Mega Resistance: Tar Sands, Social Movements, and the Politics of Energy Infrastructure, which examines the coalitions that formed in opposition to major pipeline projects and analyzes the alliances, strategies, and tensions that have shaped resistance to energy infrastructure in Canada.

The two presentations highlighted how environmental governance is shaped not only by policy outcomes, but also by the political struggles embedded in process, participation, legitimacy, and resistance. We are grateful for this valuable opportunity to reflect on those issues at a moment of ongoing environmental and political change.

Thanks to both authors for sharing their work and insights. And thank you to EGL Co-Director Professor Matthew Hoffmann for opening the event, and to Professor Kate Neville for chairing the discussion and serving as discussant. Many thanks as well to Michael J. NG at Evoke Photo Studios for capturing the event.