I. INTRODUCTION

A. Overview of the Case

1. In the spring of 2002, the Claimants set about implementing their plan to construct the Whites Point Quarry and Marine Terminal in south-western Nova Scotia.1 They located their proposed project immediately adjacent to the Bay of Fundy on a narrow peninsula of land known as the Digby Neck. It was to be of a size, duration and magnitude the likes of which the Digby Neck had never before seen. As is required by provincial and federal law in Canada, the Whites Point project underwent an environmental assessment (“EA”). The EA concluded in the fall of 2007 with decisions by the governments of Nova Scotia and Canada that the project would not be permitted to proceed.

2. The Claimants characterize the Whites Point EA process as an “artifice of process and procedure”2 based on “dishonesty, deception, and bad faith.”3 They even go so far as to allege that it had a “predetermined outcome.”4 They suggest that “quarry permits are routinely granted in Nova Scotia, and other provinces of Canada, with either no environmental assessment or with minimal environmental assessment,”5 because, they say, a “quarry is simply a hole in the ground, with minimal environmental impact.”6 Their premise and their characterization of the Canadian regulatory landscape are both deeply flawed.