Getting Prosperity Mine back on track

Over at Welcome to Williams Lake, former Williams Lake Tribune reporter Sage Birchwater gives his opinion on how we, as a region, can get the Prosperity Mine proposal back on track and make a "win-win" for the Cariboo-Chilcotin people:

See below --

The attempt to establish Prosperity Mine in the heart of Xeni Gwet’in territory, 125 kilometres southwest of Williams Lake, has been a contentious and divisive issue for the people of the Cariboo Chilcotin.


But it didn’t have to be that way.


The mine offered a light at the end of a not so bright regional economic tunnel and many people were counting on it to turn things around.


When the project was turned down by the federal government, a delegation of local civic and political leaders went to Ottawa to find out why the mine got sidelined.


Maybe they needed to look a little closer to home when an important sector of our community got excluded from the process.


Until June 2008 the proposal to develop Prosperity Mine was an inclusive one, with a Joint Panel Review process that included the federal and provincial governments, First Nations, and the proponent of the mine, Taseko Mines.


What was important about this process was that all interested parties were sitting at the same table, working together in good faith to come up with a mine development plan that everybody could live with.


Then out of the blue, and to the surprise of the other parties involved, Taseko Mines and the provincial government pulled out of this consultative process, and announced they would forge ahead with their own provincial environmental review of the project, and let the federal government do their own thing and conduct a separate environmental review.


What was until then a consultative process, overnight became an adversarial one.


Many people on both sides of the debate feel that this inability to work together as a whole community to come up with a common plan, played a significant role in sinking the dream of Prosperity Mine.


Missing from the provincial environmental review process was a buy-in by First Nations who occupy the territory where the proposed mine would be located. First Nations refused to participate in a provincial process they felt was stacked against them.


If it wasn’t obvious before, it should be abundantly clear now that Canada and British Columbia need to resolve the aboriginal land and resource question directly, and not leave it up to a resource development company to do it for them.


Too much is at stake not to do it right.


We could use the failure of the Prosperity Mine proposal to our advantage by learning a valuable lesson. We were on the right track with a Joint Panel Review process that included meaningful involvement by all parties involved.


Let’s get back to that.


Contrary to what some proponents of Prosperity Mine say, the site of the proposed mine is indeed a very pristine and ecologically sensitive area. If something on the magnitude of the deepest open pit mine in the world is to occur there, then it needs to be done right.


That means it needs the consent, goodwill and cooperation of the indigenous people who live there. Their knowledge of the land, resources and environment is essential to come up with a Best Practices plan to preserve the other values that exist there.