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Following the adage that the best place to look for a new mine is an old mine, Redfern Resources began scouting the Tulsequah Chief mine in northwest British Columbia in the 1980s. Last operated by Cominco from 1951 to 1957, the multi-mineral prospect yielded test results that encouraged the company to undertake the lengthy and costly permits process and by 1998 it had wrung out of the provincial government approval for a $148-million project expected to create 560 jobs in its construction and operation.
What it needed to proceed was a 160-kilometre access road to the remote mine site. It sought permission to build the road more than a decade ago from the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans, which had to gauge the impact on fish habitat in the Taku River where the road crossed it.
Although the Tulsequah Chief mine has passed several environmental screenings over the years, the company is still waiting for the DFO to hand down a decision.
This is a particularly egregious example of bureaucratic foot-dragging, but it is not at all uncommon for companies in resource industries to wait months or years for the DFO to act. Such administrative inertia deprives workers of income and government of revenue. Economic growth is stalled and industrial development is delayed. In some cases, projects may be lost altogether as regulators dither.
At least some of the blame lies with an outdated Fisheries Act that lacks mechanisms found in more modern statutes to streamline the application and approvals process.
Industry groups representing those most affected by the act have formed a rare alliance to press the federal government to renew and update it to address some of its deficiencies.
The Council of Forest Industries of BC, the Mining Association of British Columbia, the Association for Mineral Exploration BC and the BC Agriculture Council, along with the British Columbia Chamber of Commerce and the Business Council of British Columbia, have jointly prepared a position paper that urges Ottawa to put a review of the act on its legislative agenda.
The previous Liberal government had identified renewal of the Fisheries Act as one of its countless “priorities,” but was defeated before it took any action. The Conservative government should pick up the ball and amend the act before it does any more damage.
The booming B.C. economy is attracting many resource development projects that hold the promise of more jobs, rising economic growth and greater prosperity, especially in rural areas of the province.
The industry’s recommendations are reasonable, including measures that introduce statutory timelines to decision-making and make administrative procedures more transparent and predictable.
For instance, one recommendation calls for the act to recognize that disruption must be found to be harmful before it becomes subject to work orders or penalty. That it doesn’t already do so is indicative of the heavy hand of bureaucratic malfeasance. Another recommendation says “deleterious substance” should be redefined in the act so that harmless substances are not included as they are now.
The paper also recommends that the act include an appeal mechanism and an equivalency provision to better coordinate fisheries-related matters with the provinces.
There is nothing in these recommendations that in any way weakens environmental protection. Rather, renewal of the act in accordance with the industry’s recommendations will ensure that projects can be undertaken with greater certainty and completed more quickly and less expensively.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper should tell Fisheries Minister Loyola Hearn to take up the cause and table a refurbished Fisheries Act as soon as possible.