Mining’s impact on environment focus of Kuujjuaq workshop

A three-day workshop held in Kuujjuaq this week brought company officials and Inuit together to discuss mining and mineral exploration — in some cases, face to face for the first time.

“The ones that come here for the first time, they realize what the reality is here, what people talk about,” said Cynthia Brind’Amour-Côté, technical director for the non-profit Nunavik Mineral Exploration Fund which promotes mineral exploration and Inuit involvement in development.

The exploration fund organized the event, which ran from June 4 to 6.

Close to 100 people attended, including landholders from several communities, representatives of the regional and provincial governments and Makivvik’s economic development department, and officials from mining companies with a stake in Nunavik including Raglan Mine and Canadian Royalties.

“People like to come to this event a lot,” said Brind’Amour-Côté.

She said the workshop is “convivial, people are more comfortable asking questions” that sometimes “shine a light on things that might be creating discomfort, and it permits companies to realize what really preoccupies Inuit.”

This week, she brought in Vincent Brodeur, a biologist from the provincial Ministry of the Environment, to provide a presentation on Nunavik’s caribou population and how mining exploration can negatively affect their migration.

“It is often something that Inuit will ask about,” Brind’Amour-Côté said in an interview Thursday afternoon.

When companies prepare for mining exploration, helicopters are used to transport camps to be set up at the site.

This creates enough of a disturbance to scatter caribou if they are migrating close by. Inuit want that activity carried out at a time when caribou are not in the area.

Brind’Amour-Côté said bringing people together to discuss issues like that are one of the main reasons this event is organized each year.

“We want to promote a better understanding of exploration work and Inuit” needs, she said, “we want to improve communications between communities and the companies.”

During the workshop this week, Kativik Regional Government also presented its report on the more than decade-long project to clean up abandoned mining exploration sites, some of which date back to the 1940s.

Also this week, the provincial Ministry of Natural Resources and Forests announced a reclamation project for the Asbestos Hill mining site near Kangiqsujuaq, which has been abandoned since 2019.

The ministry also outlined a change introduced last month into Quebec’s Mining Act that obliges claimholders to obtain authorization before carrying out impact-causing exploration work, including projects involving hydraulic machinery or explosives.

Brind’Amour-Côté said there are about a dozen mining exploration projects ongoing in any given year in Nunavik. The type of work varies year to year, depending on mining trends.

Currently, lithium is attracting a lot of interest because it can be used in batteries for items like cellphones and electric vehicles.