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Companies would have to pay full cost of restoring sites
The Parti Québécois government has presented its long-awaited Mining Act in the Quebec National Assembly. Bill 43 would require mining companies to put up 100 per cent of the cost of restoring mining sites to their natural state once the work is complete and calls for more processing of minerals in the province as a condition for granting a mining lease.
All mining projects would have to pass an environmental assessment, and the bill calls for dialogue between mining companies and nearby communities. In the name of transparency, mining companies would have to make public the tonnage of minerals extracted and the amount of royalties paid to the province.
Companies would have to make public their claims within 60 days and reveal operating plans 90 days before work starts.
Martine Ouellet, the PQ minister of natural resources, said it took almost nine months to frame Bill 43 because she consulted the mining industry and municipal governments about exclusion zones, where mining would not be allowed.
The Association minière du Québec and the Union des municipalitiés du Québec both criticized Ouellet’s new bill.
The municipal association said Bill 43 “does not meet the expectations of the municipalities,” objecting specifically that the bill gives the natural resources minister a veto over municipal land-use plans, allowing her to overrule decisions to ban mining in parts of municipal territory.
Josée Méthot, president of the Association minière du Québec, said Bill 43 would “burden” mining companies, pointing to the requirement that they present a feasibility plan on trans-forming minerals in the province as a condition for a mining lease.
Ouellet said four other Canadian provinces – Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Ontario – already require mineral processing.
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