In 2010, Bill Bennett was B.C.’s mines minister and was ignoring all information regarding Taseko Mines Ltd.’s Prosperity Mine proposal for Teztan Biny (Fish Lake) — except for the claims made by the company itself.
The area that TML wanted to turn into one of the world’s biggest open-pit, low-grade gold and copper mines was featured in B.C.’s own tourism pamphlets, yet Bennett dismissed it as a “muddy little pothole of a lake.”
He and the company kept insisting the mine would be approved by Ottawa, and TML’s investors sent the company’s share price soaring to over $7 based on these assurances.
Even the pro-mining federal government of the day found the federal panel report so “scathing” in terms of environmental impacts and infringements on aboriginal rights that it had no choice but to reject it.
Fast-forward three years. Bennett is again telling reporters he is hopeful the mine will be approved, criticizing the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency panel report, agreeing that it would find significant adverse effects from a large-scale open-pit mine, but adding: “I think the impacts can be mitigated.”
Last week, Bennett went to Ottawa to meet with his federal minister friends to twist their arms to approve the mine.
Once again, Bennett seems to think his opinion, and TML’s, are more valid than the findings of a panel of independent experts based on a “totality of the evidence” from both federal and experts from several B.C. ministries. Once again, it would appear he has not read the CEAA review panel report, or he does not care what it says.
The latest twist is that now that the report is out on the new proposal — which is based on an option even TML dismissed in 2010 — the company has suddenly “discovered” that one of the many concerns raised about the project, this one by Natural Resources Canada regarding seepage, was allegedly based on the wrong model.
How can this be? The panel and various government departments, including Natural Resources Canada, repeatedly sent TML’s environmental impact statements back for more information and clarification. In the end, the company refused to provide the information and insisted the hearings proceed.
The purpose of those hearings was to investigate all these issues, and TML had opportunity to correct any problems, and even to submit supplementary closing arguments after the hearing concluded, which it never did. It never questioned the legitimacy of the NRC model.
Yet now it suddenly finds a flaw? When it cannot be examined on its claims, and when it can make headlines just by making an allegation?
Does it really think this claim can change the fact that the panel report states that it was not only NRC experts that it found more “credible, sound and accurate” than TML’s — but also experts from Environment Canada, Fisheries and Oceans Canada, B.C. Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resources, B.C.’s Ministry of the Environment and the Tsilhqot’in Nation?
Nor does it change the significant adverse impacts on Fish Lake and its fishery, which under this plan would be turned into the world’s biggest artificial recirculated aquarium, a plan panned by experts from both governments as well as one of the world’s foremost lake ecologists. The panel found that this plan would ultimately kill off all the fish, and that these impacts could not be mitigated, making Bennett’s recent references to the panel’s recommendations meaningless and a misrepresentation of the report.
Bennett and TML do not even mention the issues of Tsilhqot’in rights over the area in question, which are now established in law and accepted by the federal and provincial governments.
The panel report lists a number of infringements that cannot be mitigated. The Constitution is clear on this point — the federal government is obligated to protect aboriginal rights against infringements. Those listed in this panel report are numerous, serious and clear.
Bennett and Taseko Mines may have the luxury of ignoring these findings, but the federal government does not. It has already rejected one proposal based on a “scathing” report. It can hardly approve a lesser option that is now the subject of even more scathing findings.
Not if it wants to have any credibility or maintain a semblance of a relationship with First Nations across the province and the country, who are watching this closely and who hold the keys to far more acceptable and mutually beneficial projects.
Chief Joe Alphonse is tribal chairman of the Tsilhqot’in Nation.
