PM Harper visits Nunavut’s Meadowbank mine

Here’s a view of machinery excavating the North Portage pit at the Meadowbank gold mine in Baker Lake. (FILE PHOTO)

Prime Minister Stephen Harper looks at a smelter during his Aug.24 visit to Agnico-Eagle’s Meadowbank gold mine near Baker Lake. (PHOTO BY DEB RANSOM, PMO)

(updated at 3:45 p.m.) with files from
MIKE DE SOUZA
Postmedia News

Prime Minister Stephen Harper donned a blue hard-hat and stamped a gold bar, as he pledged to continue economic development efforts in Canada’s North during his Aug. 24 visit to Agnico-Eagle’s Meadowbank gold mine near Baker Lake.

“Our government remains focused on the economy, job growth and expanding new opportunities from coast-to-coast-to-coast,” Harper said in an Aug. 24 news release. “Canada’s North is full of economic potential and innovators continue to unlock development possibilities that bring with them real economic benefits and long-term jobs for local residents.”

Harper also announced that Ottawa will help pay for the establishment of an office for the NWT & Nunavut Chamber of Mines in Iqaluit.

Harper also said the federal government’s Geo-mapping for Energy and Minerals program will continue to generate geophysical maps that are helping Canadian companies locate rich mineral deposits, which “reduces exploration risks and costs and encourages economic development in the North.”

In the area around Baker Lake alone, the GEM project has released 33 new geophysical maps over the past 12 months, with more expected as field work is conducted over the summer.

Harper also pointed to environmental impacts of development in Canada’s largest cities as he defended a government decision to allow the Meadowbank mine to dump its waste into nearby fish habitat.

“Obviously, when you dig holes here, you know, you create some environmental issues and those have to be addressed, but that can’t stop development, any more than we would let that stop development in Toronto, Montreal or Vancouver,” Harper said, drawing applause from local workers at the Meadowbank gold mine, as he took questions from reporters.

“The people here care about the environment. They’re partners in the environment but they have as much right to development and opportunity as people in any other part of the country.”

The Meadowbank project was launched by Toronto-based Agnico-Eagle Mines Limited, following a $1.4 billion investment that was originally designed to stay open for about a decade, creating hundreds of jobs and regional growth.

Officials from Agnico-Eagle Mines say they are benefiting from booming metal prices and mining more than $1-million worth of gold every day with local workers as well as southern Canadians flown in and out every month, at the company’s expense, to work 14-day shifts, before going home.

The project received a break from Environment Canada, which agreed to designate fish habitat in a nearby lake as a dumping zone for tailings waste.

“There was no reason to destroy this fish habitat other than cost,” said Catherine Coumans, an Ottawa-based research coordinator for MiningWatch Canada, an advocacy group. “It is cheaper (for the company) to dump tailings into natural water bodies than build an on-land impoundment.”

Jean Robitaille, a senior vice-president for technical services, explained that the solution minimizes environmental impacts of creating a tailings impoundment area on the site, noting that the company is also required to mitigate impacts of its activity and create new habitat for about 3,000 fish in the affected portion of the lake.

“If you look at the big picture, it’s a small footprint,” said Robitaille.

He said the company is also dedicated to helping the entire region grow.

“We’re not here just to come and go out and take the gold and leave,” he said. “We want to develop.”

Stéphane Robert, the company’s environment superintendent, said the company is spending $25-million to create new fish habitats in the project, monitoring impacts on other animal species such as caribou, birds, wolverines and foxes, and that it has also set aside $48-million to seal the tailings area with four metres of rocks following the end of the project to ensure that the waste remains frozen and buried.

Harper noted that all projects go through a detailed and expensive environmental review process.

“Are there effects of development on the environment? Absolutely there are effects,” Harper said. “We seek to minimize those effects. We seek to remediate those effects and we work closely with local communities and particularly with aboriginal groups in parts of the country like this to ensure that we minimize our … impact.”

He also said his government has refused some permits over environmental concerns in the past, but that under normal circumstances, it wants projects to occur.

Harper is in the midst of a week-long tour in the Arctic — his sixth annual end of summer visit to the region — that was delayed by a fatal plane crash last weekend in Resolute Bay that left 12 people dead and three injured.

On Aug. 23, Harper was in Resolute Bay.

Later today, Harper plans to fly to Yellowknife, where he may attend a memorial service is being held for the four members of the First Air crew who died in the Aug. 20 crash in Resolute Bay. He will be in Whitehorse tomorrow.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper speaks to workers at Agnico-Eagle’s Meadowbank gold mine near Bake Lake during his Aug. 24 visit. (PHOTO BY DEB RANSOM, PMO)