Ottawa Opposes Mary River Mine Expansion Project in Northern Canada - Eye on the Arctic

Ottawa Opposes Mary River Mine Expansion Project in Northern Canada – Eye on the Arctic

Posted On: November 17, 2022

The decision was published on the Nunavut Impact Review Board (NIRB) website on Wednesday.

This marks the end of four years of numerous public consultations, protests and a lengthy environmental assessment process.

Although he had the final say, Daniel Vandal said he consulted four other federal ministers before making his decision, including Fisheries and Oceans Secretary Joyce Murray and Environment and Climate Change Secretary Steven Guilbeault.

” The other Ministers responsible and I have carefully examined the Commission’s report […] and input from designated Inuit organizations and decided […] Accepting the Commission’s recommendation that phase 2 should not proceed at this stage,” the minister said in a letter to the CNER.

The Mary River Mine is located approximately 176 kilometers southwest of the community of Pond Inlet on Baffin Island.

The Baffinland Company wanted to double its iron ore production from 6 to 12 million tons per year and claimed it needed to maintain and upkeep its mine.

This objective included the construction of approximately 110 km of railroad to transport ore between the mine site and the port of Milne Inlet to the north, and a significant increase in transport out of the region.

The expansion project has sparked several schismsin particular by contrasting economic development with environmental protection and the sustainability of traditional hunting.

Among these concerns, hunters in Pond Inlet on the north shore of Baffin Island, claimed narwhal numbers had declined since the Mary River Mine started operations in 2015.

In recent years, the project has undergone a lengthy environmental assessment process which ended in a disagreement CNER at the site of expansion. Its recommendations, formulated in the light of public consultations, are summarized in a 441-page report to be released in May.

Public consultations on the second phase of the Iqaluit expansion project in April 2022. (Matisse Harvey/Radio-Canada)

In his letter on Wednesday, the Minister for Northern Affairs said he agreed with the commission’s conclusion that Baffinland was unable to adequately mitigate the mine’s negative environmental impact.

” The Panel concluded that Phase 2 has the potential to cause significant adverse ecosystem impacts on marine mammals and fish, caribou and other terrestrial wildlife, vegetation and freshwater, and that these impacts will result in significant negative socioeconomic impacts on the Inuit population. Hunting could lead to culture, land use and food security in Nunavut,” he said.

The minister also noted the “transboundary impact” of the expansion on marine biodiversity outside of Nunavut.

The Panel concluded that these potentially significant adverse impacts cannot be adequately prevented, mitigated or managed by the proposed mitigation actions..Daniel Vandal, Minister for Northern Affairs

In the past, Ottawa has sometimes not followed the recommendation of the CNER on a mining project.

In 2016, the commission recommended that Secretary of State Carolyn Bennett, previously in charge of Indigenous and Northern Affairs, not authorize the opening of the Black River gold mine in western Nunavut. However, the Minister did not follow this recommendation and instead called on the Commission to reconsider its position.