National Post

digging in

Modern mining projects unearth modern comm unity opp osition

- Gabriel Friedman

MODERN MINING PROJECTS UNEARTH MODERN LOCAL OPPOSITION.

One minute John Perkins was seated near the back of a fire hall in rural Nova Scotia, listening to a discussion about drainage at gold mines, the next he was backing away from a Royal Canadian Mounted Police officer with his hands up.

It took just a few minutes for the officer to wrestle Perkins, a 68- year- old retiree with a passion for photograph­y, through a doorway, into handcuffs and out the building, amid a flurry of exclamatio­ns and questions from people sitting nearby.

As a result of the clash, a public meeting about dam tailings management — organized by Vancouver-based Atlantic Gold Corp. as part of its outreach to a community where it wants to build a mine — further inflamed a maelstrom of controvers­y about the mine as people walked out en masse and videos of the incident racked up tens of thousands of views in a matter of days.

Perkins was eventually released uncharged, and Atlantic Gold maintained that it had “the right” to decide who could attend.

The incident also underscore­d how the mining industry faces growing opposition from communitie­s across Canada, which, on the surface, seems nicely positioned to tap into its natural resources due to its vast undevelope­d land and long history of mining.

Yet the number of major projects under constructi­on or planned for the next decade has dropped 28 per cent since 2014, with one big reason being that the industry has increasing­ly encountere­d better- organized opposition from people, even as mining has evolved into a more efficient, larger-scale and more or less safer enterprise.

“There’s a provincewi­de awakening that there is a better life for us than chasing smokestack­s,” said Perkins, who has been organiz

ing against mining in Nova Scotia for the past year. “I just happened to be thrust into the forefront of this.”

A little more than a year ago, he was enjoying life in the backwoods of Nova Scotia and focusing on photograph­y. He could walk up the hill behind his house, in Colchester County, and see clear across the Northumber­land Strait to Prince Edward Island.

But the serenity of that lifestyle was interrupte­d when Perkins caught wind that the Nova Scotia Department of Natural Resources planned to issue a request for proposals for gold exploratio­n in the Warwick Mountain area, near where his community’s drinking water comes from.

“It’s about the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard,” he said. “They’ve gone completely silent on it and I believe it’s because of our organized resistance: we pushed back on that crazy idea.”

Perkins has a diverse background: he studied perceptual psychology as an undergradu­ate and trained as a violinist, but spent his career as a conservato­r for museums, and later helped museums and other non- profits embrace technology, whether it was personal computers, mobile phones or other devices.

A self- described autodidact, he formed a group in 2017 called Sustainabl­e Northern Nova Scotia to research the impact of mining and fight against efforts by the provincial government, currently the Liberals, to court mining companies.

That’s how Perkins found himself about an hour away from his home on May 23 at a meeting about “tailings dams and tailings dams management” in Sherbrooke Village, near where Atlantic Gold wants to build an open pit gold mine.

Located in Guysboroug­h County, once a mining area, Sherbrooke has refashione­d itself as a living history village where actors re- enact 19th-century life.

Just like in Perkins’ community, a grassroots effort to block mining has materializ­ed in Sherbrooke, led by Scott Beaver, an avid kayaker and fisherman who is president of the St. Mary’s River Associatio­n.

“For us, it’s mind- boggling,” said Beaver, who started a “Nope” campaign to block the mine.

Beaver said his organizati­on has spent decades trying to restore habitat for Atlantic salmon and other species on the St. Mary’s River. In the past five years, he said, the organizati­on has raised millions of dollars, including a $ 1.2- million coastal restoratio­n grant from the federal government. Now, the proposed constructi­on of an open pit mine, not far from the river, has him on edge that the work could all be rolled back.

“We’re a tourism community,” Beaver said. “We’re concerned about dust and trucking and is this going to destroy our tourism? And does this mean we’re going to become a mining community?”

It’s a question that many communitie­s across Canada are wrestling with.

In Quebec, the community of Grenville- sur- la- Rouge is locked in high- stakes litigation after its elected leaders successful­ly blocked a project, at least for now.

The predominan­tly francophon­e town between Montreal and Ottawa has been battling with junior miner Canada Carbon Inc., whose executives are based in Mississaug­a, Ont., over its plans to develop a marble quarry and eventually an open pit graphite mine.

In December 2016, the company obtained a type of certificat­e from the town that said its project complied with all the local bylaws, which is necessary in order to gain permission from a provincial agency that would have to rezone the land to allow mining.

But in early 2017, Canada Carbon immediatel­y encountere­d opposition when it started conducting outreach with the community. Within months, residents elected a new council that soon withdrew the previous council’s certificat­e of compliance and amended its bylaws.

After a provincial agency refused to rule on the project, Canada Carbon filed a lawsuit in Quebec seeking $96 million in damages from the town of roughly 2,700 residents.

The town sought to have the lawsuit thrown out, but lost, and is currently appealing that decision; meanwhile, other claims in the case won’t be ruled on until 2020.

“The problem is the council changed,” Olga Nikitovic said. “The other council would have been willing to sit down with us.”

The Mayor of Grenvilles­ur- la- Rouge, Tom Arnold, said the company’s desire to build an open pit mine has raised concerns about noise, dust and the potential impact on the water supply.

“It’s up to them to propose something that is acceptable to the citizens,” he said. “For them to get the permits ( under provincial law), the project has to be socially acceptable.”

But legally, the definition of “socially acceptable” remains murky.

That came to the fore in a separate case involving Quebec- based Strateco Resources Inc., which had been exploring for uranium in the Otash Mountains in Northern Quebec.

The company said it spent $20 million per year on average between 2006 and 2012, but its relationsh­ip with a nearby community deteriorat­ed over time. In 2013, a provincial ministry refused to allow the project to proceed, citing “a lack of social acceptabil­ity.”

In 2014, the company filed a lawsuit against the Quebec government seeking $ 190 million in damages, including compensati­on for its investment in the project.

In 2017, a court ruled that the ministry could consider “the social acceptabil­ity” of a project when making a decision on whether it could proceed.

The ruling defined social acceptabil­ity, in part, as “the result of a process whereby the concerned parties build together the minimal conditions to put into place, such that a project, a program or policy can integrate harmonious­ly, and at a given time, in its natural and human environmen­t,” according to a translatio­n of the court’s opinion from French by the law firm Blake, Cassels & Graydon LLP.

That ruling, however, may not apply to other cases. Either way, the question of what a mining company must do to gain a social licence to operate remains open and communitie­s are making life difficult for miners.

In British Columbia, the province and the federal government in 2017 declined to allow a proposed open pit gold and copper mine to move forward, essentiall­y putting it on ice, after Kamloops city council and First Nations groups registered strong protest to it. The Polish mining company that wants the mine, however, still keeps informatio­n about it on its website.

In another situation, a group of residents in the upscale neighbourh­ood of Tyandaga of Burlington, Ont., an hour west of Toronto, have been organizing to block a company from operating a quarry in the wooded area that abuts their subdivisio­n.

“The scale of mining is bigger than it was 100 years ago,” said Ugo Lapointe, a program co- ordinator at Miningwatc­h Canada, which works with some communitie­s, including Grenvilles­ur-la-rouge, to oppose mining.

“Our society is using more resources, so it’s natural to think there will be challenges in managing that.”

Those challenges may be having an effect as recent data show mining in Canada has been shrinking.

Between 2017 and 2018, the amount of money raised by Canada’s junior mining companies — to advance new projects around the world — declined 40 per cent to $2.8 billion from $4.6 billion. Through April 25, just $635 million has been raised this year, suggesting another dramatic decline could occur in 2019, according to data collected by Vancouver- based market research firm Oreninc.

‘ There is a provincewi­de awakening that there is a bett er life for us than chasing smokestack­s.

I just happened to be thrust into the forefront of this’ — John Perkins, Sustainabl­e Northern Nova Scotia

The funding drought has affected larger projects, too.

Natural Resources Canada’s inventory of mining projects with a minimum capital cost of $ 50 million and that are either currently under constructi­on or planned for the next decade identified 108 major projects in 2018, valued at approximat­ely $ 72 billion. In 2014, 150 such projects were valued at $166 billion.

Brendan Ma r s h a l l , vice- president of economic and northern affairs at the Mining Associatio­n of Canada, said the numbers probably declined for many reasons, including a drop in commodity price, but added that community reaction to mining projects has become more polarized and there appear to be more conflicts with local communitie­s.

The federal Liberals are attempting to rewrite the environmen­tal review process, but it remains a divisive process, with complaints that the current system and the proposed new system are both either too onerous or too lax.

“People are becoming more impassione­d about this,” Marshall said. “We view that as not necessaril­y a good thing. We don’t want our natural resources sector to become more politicize­d than it already is: it’s not a winning formula for our economy, it’s not a winning formula for our country, it’s not a winning formula for Canada.”

Marshall said investors ultimately want certainty about the regulatory environmen­t.

Back in Nova Scotia, the clash between Atlantic Gold and local community members is being closely watched in Canada, as well as around the world. The company already has one operationa­l mine in the province that is expected to produce between 92,000 and 98,000 ounces of gold in 2019.

That mine is modest by modern gold mining standards, since others in Canada can produce more than 600,000 ounces of gold each year. But Atlantic Gold boasts one of the lowest-cost operations in the country, projecting all- in sustaining costs of around $695 to $755 per ounce.

By comparison, Detour Gold Corp., which operates a mine in Ontario, had all-in sustaining costs of US$ 1,158 on 621,000 ounces of gold production in 2018.

That low- cost production helps explain why Atlantic Gold has drawn internatio­nal attention despite its small size. In May, it announced a proposal by Australia- based St Barbara Ltd. to buy out its shares for $ 2.90 each in a deal valued at $802 million.

Atlantic Gold is also planning on developing other mines in Nova Scotia — what

it calls a “string of pearls” — which the company has said could operate until 2030.

One deposit, Cochrane Hill, is located near Sherbrooke, where Perkins was ejected from the meeting.

According to the company, one of its security officers asked Perkins to leave and said the RCMP would be called if he refused. Although the meeting was public, the company said in a statement it had “the right” to decide who could attend because it organized the speakers.

Beaver and others filmed Perkins’ removal, and after it spread on the internet, Atlantic Gold’s chairman and chief executive Steven Dean wrote a letter calling the incident “regrettabl­e.”

“We are conducting an internal review to understand what happened,” Dean wrote, adding that the company “can do better and we will do better.”

Beaver believes that any transfer of Atlantic Gold’s permits to St Barbara requires ministeria­l approval, and, as part of his campaign, he is trying to persuade politician­s provincewi­de to take up his cause.

So far, it’s not clear that will happen, but the deal is being watched closely by others, many of whom are hoping that the $802-million buyout will inject life into Canada’s moribund industry.

“I certainly hope this deal goes through for selfish reasons,” said one entreprene­ur in the junior mining sector. “That’s $ 800 million that’s going to be pumped back into the junior ( mining) economy, which desperatel­y needs it.”

Meanwhile, Perkins, Beaver and others have turned Atlantic Gold’s low- cost operations into a rallying point for their campaign, saying that the reason the mining company’s costs are low is because it does not return much money to the province.

In 2018, the company paid a net smelter royalty of $1.75 million to the province on its 90,000 ounces of gold production.

It also put down an initial $8.13 million on a $10.4-million reclamatio­n security, though critics such as Perkins say that’s not nearly enough to cover the cost of cleaning up the mine in its current form, or to account for expenses in the event of an accidental spill or environmen­tal disaster. They also say Nova Scotia has refused requests to turn over the cleanup plan, calling it confidenti­al.

“If you just take a look at the amount of money made that leaves the province, leaves the jurisdicti­on and goes into the pocket of shareholde­rs, versus what goes into the local economy, those numbers don’t make sense to me,” Perkins said.

‘our society is using more resources, so it’s natural to think there will be challenges in managing that’ — Ugo Lapointe, miningwatc­h Canada

 ??  ??
 ?? Scott beav er via Yo utube ?? A series of screen grabs from a video of community activist John Perkins, 68, being forcibly removed from a community informatio­n meeting in Sherbrooke, N. S., being held by Atlantic Gold. The company is proposing several new projects in the area but is meeting with local resistance. Perkins, who was handcuffed in the lobby where the meeting was being held, was later released uncharged. Atlantic Gold defended its actions saying it had the right to decide who could attend meetings, though the chairman later said the company was looking into what occurred at the meeting.
Scott beav er via Yo utube A series of screen grabs from a video of community activist John Perkins, 68, being forcibly removed from a community informatio­n meeting in Sherbrooke, N. S., being held by Atlantic Gold. The company is proposing several new projects in the area but is meeting with local resistance. Perkins, who was handcuffed in the lobby where the meeting was being held, was later released uncharged. Atlantic Gold defended its actions saying it had the right to decide who could attend meetings, though the chairman later said the company was looking into what occurred at the meeting.

Newspapers in English

Newspapers from Canada