The conflict between mining companies hungry to exploit the vast riches of northern Ontario and the poverty-stricken First Nations that live there came to Parliament Hill on Tuesday.
The federal regulatory system is failing in the region’s mineral formation known as the Ring of Fire, First Nations representatives and mining executives told MPs at the House of Commons natural resources committee. One aboriginal group has even put one mega-project on hold through court action.
The legal obligations of miners to nearby First Nations are so difficult to discern, it’s denting Canada’s reputation as a politically stable place to do business, said one mining executive.
“The bar has been shifting to a point where I’m wondering what our legal rights are as an exploration company,” said Ronald Coombes, president of White Tiger Mining Corp., a junior exploration firm with assets in the region. “Right now, we’re looking for financing abroad and we have to explain to shareholders where the money is going and it’s really putting us in a bind to discuss what we’re dealing with.
“They’re political issues. They’re not the business issues we should be dealing with,” he said.
White Tiger Mining is one of the smaller companies to stake claims in the Ring of Fire, tucked into the northwest corner of Ontario. Yet the region is also home to many current and potential projects that are rubbing their aboriginal neighbours the wrong way, from the De Beers Victor Diamond Mine near Attawapiskat to the Big Thor Chromite Deposit, owned by U.S. industrial metals producer Cliffs Natural Resources Inc.
Historically underdeveloped, the Ring of Fire is believed to contain vast amounts of iron, copper, nickel, zinc, gold, platinum, cobalt and diamonds. However, the vast wilderness is also the ancient territory of dozens of First Nations that have been unable to develop economically due to their remote setting and suffer from poor social infrastructure.
In recent years, mining companies have been trying to ease their arrival with ad hoc agreements that cover such areas as jobs and training. Yet in many cases, these agreements have backfired and led to protests, including De Beers’ Impact and Benefit Agreement (IBA) with the Attawapiskat First Nation.
First Nations are also upset about their lack of input in the regulatory process, which determines the permissible degree of environmental impact.
The Matawa First Nations, an umbrella group that represents nine smaller nations, took the regulators of Cliffs’ Big Thor project to federal court on Nov. 7. “What we’ve seen in the past is that we’ve heard enough talk. What we want are actual agreements,” Raymond Ferris, who was representing the Matawa First Nations, told the committee Tuesday.
Cliffs has a memorandum of understanding with the Matawa First Nations, but no formal agreement on issues like jobs and royalties.
The court battle is over the type of environmental assessment Big Thor will receive from the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency (CEAA), its regulator.
The CEAA has chosen to do a comprehensive review of the project instead of a more-intensive joint review panel. The Matawa First Nations argues Big Thor triggers all three requirements for a joint review panel: adverse environmental impacts, infringement of treaty and aboriginal rights, and significant public concern.
A joint review panel, such as the one done for the Mackenzie River and Northern Gateway pipeline projects, requires oral testimony from the affected parties, while the comprehensive review does not. “We feel the process doesn’t take into account our concerns,” said Ferris.
Also at issue is money.
First Nations rarely have enough money to conduct their own environmental assessments, a perennial problem in the regulation of resource projects in rural and remote Canada. Federal funds are usually allocated to help First Nations hire environmental consultants, but these monies are much harder to come by under a comprehensive review, said Ferris.
For the rest of this article, please go to the iPolitics website: http://www.ipolitics.ca/2012/02/14/mining-companies-first-nations-clashing-over-ring-of-fire-mps-told/