New energy era, new rules needed to develop responsible projects

KIMBERLEY, B.C.—As our planet faces dramatic change related to our never-ending consumption of fossil fuels, our hopes have shifted to developing new green technologies like electric vehicles and solar panels. But behind these new technologies is a voracious hunger to develop the critical minerals required to fuel this green transition. Unlike the current climate and biodiversity crisis we are facing today, we cannot allow our need for these critical minerals to develop into a new flood of future catastrophes. If we have learned anything from decades of big oil greed and politics, our trust cannot lie in corporations making environmentally or socially just decisions over profit margins. We need new responsibilities to accompany the new economy. Wyatt Petryshen is the mining policy and Impacts Researcher at Wildsight. Photograph courtesy of Wildsight We need transparency and accountability. Companies must provide real, effective, quantifiable plans and actions, not fancy ad campaigns, clever slogans, and goodwill tokens. This does not mean a decades-long process for mine permitting and production. Rather, it would help to develop responsible projects. If recent proposals were not so mired in environmental risk and imposed on First Nations by governments and corporations that refuse to take no for an answer, we would not have the current delays in mine development we have today. Unless this changes, existing problems could worsen, making access to critical minerals in Canada—and the investments needed—almost impossible. Both Canada and British Columbia have high aspirations for developing critical minerals, but neither has the cleanest records, at home or abroad, regarding First Nations and the environment. In fact, B.C. is currently under fire for transboundary pollution flowing across its borders. And while the province's new premier, David Eby, has made positive moves to enact the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, the province is still being sued by one First Nation over the Mineral Tenure Act, and other legal actions loom. At times, it seems B.C. and Canada take their political and policy leads from mining companies—if the corporations are big enough and generate enough revenue. Not a good or helpful look in these changing times. B.C.’s Teck Resources Ltd. and its Elk Valley coal mines are a case in point, promoted as the gold standard in corporate and environmental responsibility. But Freedom of Information documents show that Teck has opposed the Canadian government from agreeing to an October 2021 United States request to refer a massive transboundary water pollution problem caused by its mountaintop coal mines to the International Joint Commission (among other reasons, Teck said it opposed the reference to the International Joint Commission because “there are more effective ways to address the selenium concerns”). The goal is an Indigenous-led watershed board that can collect and disseminate information, and make recommendations, on how best to solve the over-decades-long selenium problem flowing from the Elk Valley coal mines across the Canada-U.S. border. Last month, the Environmental Assessment Office required Teck to make revisions to its Fording River Extension Project, based on substantive concerns raised by the Ktunaxa Nation of extraordinary adverse effects caused by the project, which many believe should have been outright rejected. And now Teck is setting up a stand-alone company—Elk Valley Resources—that will take full control of the Elk Valley coal business while providing Teck Metals with reliable cash flow. This raises some serious questions regarding the ongoing environmental assessment and long-term environmental liabilities concerning water treatment and reclamation. Teck Coal’s Line Creek Mine, located in British Columbia. Photograph courtesy of Alec Underwood B.C. and the federal government need to ensure transparency, in the least, to ensure future cleanup doesn’t fall to B.C. taxpayers. An International Joint Commission watershed board is one way to ensure that transparency. They have no choice if they want to build the trust and social licence required to develop critical minerals and foster the new era of clean energy and green technology. Wyatt Petryshen is the mining policy and Impacts Researcher at Wildsight, an organization working to protect biodiversity in British Columbia’s southern Rocky Mountain and Columbia regions. He lives in Kimberley, B.C. The Hill Times

New energy era, new rules needed to develop responsible projects

We cannot be as irresponsible with critical minerals as we have been with fossil fuels.

Advocates at biodiversity conference push back against plan to expedite approvals for critical minerals mines

U.S. demands action on Canada’s failure to use International Joint Commission to prevent transboundary water pollution

Canada-U.S. transborder political dispute looms over water pollution crisis in British Columbia’s Elk Valley

Advocates at biodiversity conference push back against plan to expedite approvals for critical minerals mines

How can Ontario achieve net zero, with greater energy reliability and resilience? Roadmap to a clean energy future

Broadening access to digital services for Canadians through secure verification and authentication

Canadian news is in trouble: we can’t afford to let tech giants make its financial difficulties worse

Canada changed forever 40 years ago when Mulroney was elected party leader at Ottawa convention

This World Milk Day, thank a Canadian dairy farmer

All we have to worry about is ‘generative AI’ killing millions of white-collar jobs

Even high-wage temporary foreign workers are at risk of exploitation

Canada’s electric vehicle industry: developing an end-to-end value chain

What else is happening while we worry about COVID?

Time to move away from business-as-usual approach to climate, resource development policies

Federal silence on Wet’suwet’en tensions a ‘worrisome’ sign of faltering Liberal push on reconciliation, say advocates

Missed LNG opportunity shows how difficult foreign investment is to get

News

Get free news updates

Opinion

Submit a guest opinion article

resources

Advertise

subscribe

get help

New energy era, new rules needed to develop responsible projects

We cannot be as irresponsible with critical minerals as we have been with fossil fuels.

Get The Weekend Point of View Newsletter