Those with a good handle on American environmental law often think that the differences with Canada are trivial. They're not. Some years, I make a lot of my income repairing the mistakes that American lawyers made in Canada. But there's no doubt that mastery of American legal concepts can help to ask appropriate questions in Canada.

Knowing the right questions can result in getting a good general overview of many issues on the Internet. Most of the foundation documents for Canadian environmental law are now available online. The most useful free site is www.canlii.org, modeled on Cornell's Legal Information Institute. CanLII contains the full text of every public statute and regulation in the country, and is searchable, though it may not have the very latest amendments. It also contains hundreds of thousands of recent case decisions, in the language in which they were issued.

For very recent changes, you need to go to the e-laws website of the individual government. Federal laws are collected by the Department of Justice at http://laws.justice.gc.ca/en/. Each province and territory also posts its laws. For example, Alberta's are posted at http://www.qp.gov.ab.ca/index.cfm. Many of the larger municipalities post at least some of their bylaws. For example, Vancouver's are posted at http://vancouver.ca/bylaw_wa/.

The Vancouver site illustrates one problem for Americans when doing Internet searches. You need to know the basics of Canadian legal terms. For example, we don't have "ordinances," we have "bylaws," which may also be spelled "by-laws." You also need to remember that our spelling is more traditional or British than in the United States; if you want to know rules about notifying neighbours, you have to spell it with a "u."

A third problem is that Canada accepts a much higher degree of government discretion than Americans do, so many practical details about how things really work are not listed in the formal laws.

Sometimes the missing details are included in codes developed through voluntary, multi-stakeholder processes such as the Canadian Standards Association, www.csa.ca/Default.asp?language=english. Want to know how a drinking water utility must be managed? Or an analytical laboratory? Or an underground storage tank for petroleum products? These and many others are typically governed by CSA codes that have been adopted into regulations. However, the actual content of the codes must be purchased, and are not available online. Class environmental assessment guides also may have to be purchased.

Unsurprisingly, there is useful information on the websites of each jurisdiction's Ministry of the Environment. Even Quebec makes a great deal of information available in English. See www.menv.gouv.qc.ca/ministere/inter_en.htm.

Legal blogs, or "blawgs," are a popular way to get information on the latest legal developments. For example, we're very proud of our blog at http://envirolaw.ca. Most trade associations have newsletters or websites; see, for example, the Ontario Environmental Industry Association's newsletter at www.oneia.ca/index.php. On hot topics, non-governmental organizations can provide helpful glimpses of where things may be going; see, for example, www.ecojustice.ca or www.cela.ca.

Thus, there is no shortage of places on the Internet to get information about Canadian environmental rules. The problem is to turn all that information into a practical action plan. For that, there is no substitute for a top-notch environmental specialist. But the well-informed client who's done her homework asks the best questions, and gets the best bang for her buck. PE