B.C. premiers have a history of magnificent dreams involving either untold riches or epic public works — or both — in northern B.C.
W.A.C. Bennett dammed the Peace River, of course. He also had a career-long preoccupation with building the Pacific Great Eastern Railway (a.k.a., Prince George Eventually) into a north-south economic lifeline that would enrich everyone along the line. Dave Barrett was just as keen on the rail line clear to Alaska to open up the north.
Bill Bennett’s government built Tumbler Ridge to create a coal boom. Glen Clark got wildly enthusiastic about the potential for three new aluminum smelters on the north coast. Christy Clark promised a debt-free B.C. based on multiple LNG plants up north.
That’s just a sampling.
Premier David Eby joined the vision quest this week, announcing a new drive to seize the “generational opportunity to build lasting prosperity” by way of multiple mines in the northwest.
He said the surging demand for critical minerals and metals and the geo-political uncertainties about current sources make for $50 billion worth of lucrative mining value there for the taking.
That means tens of thousands of jobs across B.C. with an average annual salary $139,000, he said. They’ll be the cleanest mines in the world — courtesy of a new transmission line, all the watersheds will be protected and First Nations will be an integral part of it all. Critical northwest nations are already deeply involved in the projects in development.
“We cannot realize our full potential … without First Nations as whole partners at the table.”
But there was one completely mystifying aspect to the kickoff of this new drive to the promised land. He insisted that it has nothing whatsoever to do with Bill 15, the infrastructure project act that has created a furor in Indigenous circles and elsewhere to do with bypassing consultation and local decision making.
“There’s no connection between Bill 15 and today’s announcement.”
No connection? A wholesale commitment to billions of dollars worth of expedited mines is exactly the kind of thing the controversial bill is designed to handle.
To recap, a month ago the NDP introduced a bill that gives cabinet the power to designate major projects as provincially significant and fast track all their approvals.
This week he announced a push to get billions of dollars worth of mining underway in the northwest, which is as major and provincially significant as you can get.
Then he denied that the monumental new mining priority has anything to do with the new framework set up to approve ideas exactly like that.
It’s like writing a detailed recipe for a gourmet meal, then describing it in luscious terms on the menu, then denying the recipe has anything to do with the dinner.
Eby said the government does have opportunities under Bill 15, but they aren’t related to the mining vision, “in the sense that if Bill 15 didn’t exist, we’d still be doing this announcement.”
He said the same opportunities for partnership and co-operation are at hand, so the bill isn’t required to make the mining vision happen.
If that’s the case, then what’s the point of the bill?
It sets up a process where cabinet can designate public or private projects for fast-track treatment. They’re ones that would have a “profound impact” on the “ability of our country and our province to stand on our own two feet. These are significant projects.”
But that’s the perfect description of what he just outlined as a huge new push to open multiple new northern mines.
The separation between the mining vision and Bill 15 is entirely in his own mind. It likely developed because the bill has turned into a major problem for his government and he doesn’t want it to contaminate the opportunities where there is already Indigenous buy-in.
The First Nations Leadership Council has written an open letter saying the NDP was “unclear, confusing, and arguably misleading” when it tried to explain the bill to assembled chiefs recently.
They were assured that the support and consent of Indigenous nations for private projects on their territory are required in the bill. But the FNLC sees nothing of the sort in the bill.
The council said it is “confounded” and the negative fallout could be irreparable, it said.
Eby is off to Asia on the weekend to tell investors looking for “ethically produced minerals” the good news about B.C.’s new vision.
They’re going to be as confounded as everyone else.
