EXPLORATION 1998 — Ontario land-use debate worries mining industry

Ontario may boast some of Canada’s most prospective ground, but some prospectors and mining companies say a new provincial land-use designation program is a threat to mineral exploration and development in the province.

The Lands for Life program, introduced by the Progressive Conservative government in February 1997, is a public process designed to provide the Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR) with a better understanding of what activities Ontario residents want to occur on the province’s Crown land.

The 46 million ha of Crown land under review, roughly the size of Newfoundland, spans the full width of the province and extends 150 km past Lake Nipigon in the north and as far south as Peterborough. It has been divided into three planning zones — Boreal West, Boreal East and Great Lakes-St. Lawrence — each of which is presided over by a roundtable group comprised of representatives of environmental, aboriginal, logging, mining, tourism and government concerns.

The task before the three 14-member roundtables, which began meeting in mid-1997, is to make recommendations to the MNR, based on ministry data and public consultation, regarding the best use of Crown land.

Of greatest concern to the mining industry is the possibility that much of that land could be redesignated as parkland or other areas protected against mining exploration and development. The Ontario mining sector has much at stake in the process; every major mining camp in the province falls within one of the three regional sub-zones.

At the heart of the Lands for Life process is the debate over how to protect the environment without dire economic ramifications for communities and companies that depend on natural resources for their livelihood.

“It’s the same old north-south difference of opinion on how land in the north should be used,” says Michael Leahy, a member of the Boreal East roundtable group and president of the Northern Prospectors’ Association (NPA). He says a government decision to post ‘off-limits’ signs to the mining industry “wouldn’t put everybody out of work, but it would be significant.”

Leahy characterizes a worst-case scenario as one that would erode security of land tenure, restrict access to potential mineral land and create a poor

investment climate for both junior and major companies. He described the 120 members in attendance at the NPA’s recent annual meeting as “gravely concerned.”

It’s not just prospectors who are anxious about the future of mining in the province. Patrick Reid, president of the Ontario Mining Association (OMA), which represents 42 mining-related companies, from small drillers to major producers, says the Lands for Life process is ill-suited to the mining industry.

“You can pretty well draw a map of other resources — trees, water, flora, fauna — but we don’t know where the mineral bodies are,” he says. “If we go around making a bunch more parks for the sake of doing so, without knowing what resources we’re turning into single-use, that really concerns us.” Reid is concerned with what he perceives to be the arbitrary designation of new protected areas, as is Band-Ore Resources President Wayne O’Connor.

O’Connor wants the government to conduct detailed geological analyses with members of the province’s mining community to determine the mineral potential of Crown land before any of it is taken off the market.

But the MNR maintains that its methods are sound. “We have an incredible amount of technology for computers and mapping, and knowledge of Crown land,” says MNR spokesman Peter Hickey. He adds that the roundtables “will make recommendations that will satisfy everybody.”

Reid, whose OMA has made presentations to all three of the groups, is not so sure. “My personal feeling is that not too many people are listening to what we or the resource industry is saying. There’s an extreme protectionist element who don’t want anything to happen anywhere,” he says. “My experience is that there is a lot of emotion, but not a lot of facts.”

Although the industry has been a vocal participant in the public proceedings held throughout the province since last year, it is up against influential competition in the form of numerous environmental advocacy groups. The Federation of Ontario Naturalists, Wildlands League and World Wildlife Fund Canada have gone so far as to create a consortium, called Partnership for Public Lands, to argue for the withdrawal of 15 to 20% of the total area from resource-related activity. But Kevin Kavanagh, senior manager for conservation science at World Wildlife Fund Canada, says the consortium is not opposed to such activities, and is not looking to shut the mining industry down. The consortium simply advocates different land for different uses, he says. He describes the fear that Ontario’s mining industry will suffer at the hands of Lands for Life as unfounded.

Although it’s too early in the process to predicate how much Crown land might be withdrawn from industrial use, some are bracing for the worst.

Richard Mori, a prospector and resource development manager for Toronto-based Golden Rose Resources, points out that miners and investors are abandoning British Columbia following a land re-evaluation program in that province. B.C.’s program was introduced in the early 1990s, with the objective of doubling parkland and protected areas in the province to 12% from 6% of the total land area. Industry sources there say the process, headed by inclusive Local Resource Management Planning (LRMP) groups, became a park-building exercise, resulting in an additional 20% to 30% of the province being designated special management areas’ in which the legality of industrial activity is also in question.

The mining industry blamed the program when the province attracted only $75 million in exploration investment in 1997, a near-record low, and when stakeholders launched a civil lawsuit against the provincial government over the “de facto expropriation” of mineral claims in good standing. Explorers say that notices of work on claims in areas redesignated as parks were rejected by the government, effectively returning the ground to the province. Although some larger stakeholders, such as Royal Oak Mines, received compensation, many smaller firms and individuals were left out in the cold.

Says Ken Sumanik, director of land use and environment for the Mining Association of British Columbia, “We’re in a freefall now.”

Neither Mori nor Reid discount the possibility of similar lawsuits being filed in Ontario, but Mori says that the government likely couldn’t afford numerous and costly payouts. For its part, the province has said it will not examine the issue of compensation until it views the recommendations of the roundtables, which will make their submissions by the end of June. “If the government isn’t careful, they’ll have a British Columbia situation, where people are loath to invest in resource industries,” warns Reid.

“The industry [in B.C.] is a total writeoff, and we’re headed that way in Ontario,” says Mori.

However, some in Ontario’s mining industry are guardedly optimistic about the Lands for Life process and the impact it could have on the province’s mining sector. “I know what they’re saying, and they’re not wrong in their skepticism,” says David Christianson, a member of the Boreal West roundtable and president of the Northwestern Ontario Prospectors Association, of the program’s critics. “Every time there’s been a land-use planning process in the past, it’s turned into a land grab.”

But Christianson says the program could benefit the mining sector, and he points out that in his 35 years as a prospector, he has “never seen a land-use planning process where mining people had a place in the process.” Christianson is satisfied that the government has done all it can to make the process as inclusive as possible, and that the roundtables are “trying to make sure the record is complete, so that if we do make responsible option recommendations in the end, the minister will have a hard time not implementing them.

“The mining industry stands to gain from this
process, but we’ve got a hell of a fight in front of us,” he says.

Mori says the land-use designation process in B.C. set a dangerous precedent that is now spilling into Ontario. “If this happens in Ontario, there goes Canada. We will no longer be a nation built on mining.”

Mori has begun meeting with banks and brokerage firms in order to bolster industry support. His goal is to create a mining consortium comprised of stakeholders of all stripes, from prospectors and juniors to majors and institutional investors. He also intends to start a fund to pay for a promotional campaign that will make Ontario residents aware of the importance of mining, not just to northern communities, but to the economic well-being of the entire province.