BOOK REVIEW — Latest Voisey’s book looks at social justice

Premature Bonanza:

Standoff at Voisey’s Bay

By Mick Lowe

Between the Lines

720 Bathurst St., Suite 404

Toronto, Ont. M5S 2R4

$21.95

While novelists have a blank cheque when it comes to literary style, non-fiction writers typically are of two types: those disciplined enough to allow a story to unfold and tell itself; and those who examine a story from a narrower perspective, sometimes to shine a necessary light into a dark corner, other times to exercise their fifth-estate predilection to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.

Premature Bonanza: Standoff at Voisey’s Bay by Mick Lowe falls into the latter category. While the book covers the Labrador nickel-copper-cobalt discovery and the hype-driven bidding war between Inco and Falconbridge, Lowe uses a single thread — social justice — to string together his cautionary tale. By placing aboriginal and social issues at the forefront of the Voisey’s Bay debate, he sheds light on the challenges and complexities of modern-day resource development. At the same time, he doesn’t hesitate to rebuke Inco for its clumsiness in accommodating the goals and aspirations of other stakeholders, particularly native groups.

Lowe picks up the Voisey’s Bay story in its later stages, when it was perceived as a threat to the survival of his home town of Sudbury. He made the trek to the Labrador site and quickly learned that Inco’s efforts to fast-track the project into production were over-ambitious, if not foolish. He saw potential roadblocks everywhere: in the form of unresolved land disputes, legal challenges by environmental groups, and an impasse with local aboriginal groups, including the militant Innu nation. As each dispute dragged on, Inco itself was battered by falling nickel prices, dumping from Russia, and new competition from Australia and Southeast Asia. And then politics reared its head, pushing the timetable for production into an uncertain future.

That Lowe shows little sympathy for Inco and its shareholders is not surprising, given the narrow ideological focus of his book. But to suggest, as Lowe does, that Inco’s involvement in an Indonesian nickel project was somehow tied to atrocities committed by the government in East Timor takes the exercise too far. Nor does the author appear to understand the concept of mineral tenure, even on lands claimed by aboriginals, or basic business principles.

Despite its shortcomings, Premature Bonanza is a worthwhile read, if for no other reason than to understand resource development from a non-business perspective. It even offers faint hope that, given the right conditions, Inco will develop Voisey’s Bay into a mine that will benefit more than just the company and its shareholders.

Asked by Newfoundlanders if Inco could be trusted, Lowe surprised even himself by his qualified “yes” — provided a strong regulatory framework were in place to protect the people and the environment. The company can be trusted, he explained, “if the people of Labrador and Newfoundland understand that Inco is not, at the end of the day, in the business of community development, environmental protection, or even mining. Inco’s business, simply put, is to earn profits for its shareholders. If it can’t do the latter, it will do none of the former.”

And that, he said, was the lesson learned by the people of Sudbury after dealing with Inco for nearly a century.