Baffinland jobs safe for now

Mining company delays terminations set to take effect Sunday as NIRB recommends higher shipping limit

Nunavut Impact Review Board chairperson Marjorie Kaviq Kaluraq gave Baffinland Iron Mines Corp.’s application to increase its shipping limit a positive recommendation Thursday evening. (File photo by David Venn)

By David Venn
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

Baffinland Iron Mines Corp. has pushed back the date it was to start letting go its Mary River mine employees. The move came Thursday after the Nunavut Impact Review Board issued a positive recommendation on the company’s application for a higher iron ore shipping limit.

The mining company can prevent “potential significant adverse ecosystemic and socioeconomic effects” if it improves adaptive management and monitoring programs, board chairperson Marjorie Kaviq Kaluraq wrote in a letter to federal Northern Affairs Minister Daniel Vandal Thursday.

The final decision on whether to approve Baffinland’s application to ship six million tonnes of iron ore this year, instead of 4.2 million tonnes, will be made by Vandal.

The company had warned earlier this year that without the higher limit, it wouldn’t have any work for its employees and would begin to let them go.

Baffinland had scheduled its first round of terminations for Sept. 25 — on Sunday.

With NIRB’s announcement, that has been pushed back to Oct. 20 which is when Vandal had “indicated” he will be able to make his decision, Baffinland spokesperson Peter Akman said Thursday.

“The NIRB recommendation clearly recognizes the importance of Baffinland to the Nunavut economy and that allowing the company to continue producing will preserve hundreds of high-paying jobs,” Akman wrote in an email.

“We urge the federal government to follow the NIRB recommendation and permit Baffinland to continue to operate at current levels.”

Baffinland originally scheduled two rounds of terminations, on Sept. 25 and Oct. 11, to let 1,100 employees go.

Vandal’s spokesperson Kyle Allen said he can’t provide a timeframe for the minister to release his decision, in an email to Nunatsiaq News prior to the board’s recommendation being released.

“A decision will be taken following appropriate due diligence and comprehensive analysis, including whether the duty to consult has been met,” Allen wrote.

Since 2018, Baffinland had been shipping six million tonnes of iron ore per year. However, that permit expired in December and since then it has been limited to 4.2 million tonnes annually.

In May, Baffinland asked Vandal to request the review board agree to increase its shipping limit back to six million tonnes for the 2022 shipping season.

When Vandal said he couldn’t do that, Baffinland then asked him to grant an emergency order that would supersede the board by certifying that an emergency existed.

The emergency was that if the company could not ship six million tonnes in 2022, it would let go more than 1,300 employees — at least 209 of whom are Inuit — which would also affect the jobs of 400 contractors.

Vandal rejected that request on June 1.

Meanwhile, the company had begun the NIRB review process on May 20.

NIRB accepted responses regarding technical concerns from government bodies, conservation groups and Inuit organizations between July 19 and Aug. 9 and held a community roundtable Aug. 16 in Pond Inlet, which was accessible remotely.

Now, Baffinland and those organizations wait while Vandal considers NIRB’s recommendation and then decides whether to raise the company’s shipping limit.

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(16) Comments:

  1. Posted by Truestory on

    Finally!! Awesomest. Thank you.

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  2. Posted by Pond Inlet Resident on

    YAAAY!!!

    Protect our jobs!!! we live in a money society now, cant hunt today without a job to buy stuff.

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    • Posted by Ned Flanders on

      Hoo-Rah.
      Good to hear.
      Cheers!?

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  3. Posted by John K on

    This is great news.

    A small victory for working class Nunavumiut.

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  4. Posted by Aputi on

    If they accepted the phase 2, a lot of people woild not have to worry about losing them jobs, most of these generations who were born around 2000 they barely hunt only technology

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  5. Posted by Good News on

    I look forward to our MP’s reaction, I have no doubt she was fighting hard behind the scenes to preserve jobs for the Inuit of North Baffin.

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    • Posted by Igunaaqi on

      Did you not know she represented the guardians? I’m sure she still doesn’t want phase 2 to go through. She needs to stay out of this topic.

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      • Posted by anon on

        I think that was sarcasm.

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        • Posted by Good news on

          can confirm…

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    • Posted by If Her Past History Is Any Guide, Then She Was on

      …very far behind the scenes

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  6. Posted by John on

    Permit for 6mt approved, then renewed and now renewed again. Why make it temporary so that it requires reapproval all the time? Is it so that the company can be gouged for new benefits every time? Just seems ridiculous that Baffinland has to keep taking up NIRB’s time with discussing something that has been studied and yet approved time and time again. It just get’s everyone worried about the place shutting down all the time. Baffinland is going to have to start the process for 2023 all over again soon. I wonder if the decision will be last minute again and Baffinland will have to go through the notification to labour board, prepare layoff notices, etc… all over again, just in case 2023 isn’t approved.

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    • Posted by Pangloss on

      Moral cowardice is the answer, in my opinion. No one wants to commit their legacy in to the thing that is so criticized.

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    • Posted by Dumbfounded on

      1.9% royalty rate….BIM should not even exist.

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    • Posted by :) on

      This is because Baffinland applied for a temporary increase, a temporary extension to the increase, and now another temporary extension.

      I assume the latest extension is for only 1 year, because the company applied for it at the last minute and really pressured the government to fast-track its proposal.

      There’s no conspiracy here, the company is just really bad at filling out applications.

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    • Posted by What I think Will Happen on

      ’23 will be the last shipping season. Once Phase 2 isn’t approved later this winter, investor financing will pull out. One last year to ship out ore then the mine gets put on mothballs until they find a buyer. Given the economic outlook on the horizon, likely it will sit for a long, long time. Not to mention the political and environmental barriers that will have been established in denying phase 2 outright. Unless they are a major with a very long time horizon, I don’t see investors lining up to finance this project – there will be much better areas to deploy capital in the coming economic environment.

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      • Posted by Ones opinion on

        If phaze 2 doesnt go through BIM will just jump to phaze 3 which they already hold the permits for which is what should have been done in the first place

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