(Excerpt)

As Paul Martin prepares to take the reins as
Canada’s new prime minister in Ottawa this month, Canada’s current
foreign environmental policies will be on trial in London.

Tomorrow, a panel of five Privy Councillors, Britain’s highest court of
appeal, will hear a case brought by Belizean environmentalists and
business owners against the approval of Canadian-backed plans to build
a 50-metre-high concrete hydroelectric dam in the rainforests of this
small Central American country.

If completed, the Chalillo dam would not only flood one of the world’s
most important wilderness areas and drown irreplaceable traces of the
ancient Maya civilization, but will put 12,000 people living downstream
at risk.

The project sponsor, Newfoundland-based Fortis, Inc., monopoly owner of
Belize’s electricity utility, has close ties to the governments in
Ottawa and Newfoundland, and just bought up distribution utilities in
Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia.