February 14, 2019
Maryse Belanger, President and COO, Director Atlantic Gold sent Warden Mosher and council a three page letter dated Jan 12, 2018. This letter is available for viewing online at the District of St Mary’s website in the Jan 14th Council Minutes (page 14 – 16). In essence, the contents of this letter is Atlantic Gold defending their position on the proposed Cochrane Hill Gold Mine.
From Ms. Belanger’s letter under point three “To Support your preparation for the meeting, I would like to offer some updates and clarifications:”
· The Draft EIS will be written over the coming months, and Atlantic Gold will hold a public meeting to review the draft EIS later in 2019. I want to assure Council that the local community will have an opportunity to review and provide comments to Atlantic Gold before the draft EIS is submitted to Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency. Once submitted, CEAA will begin a 365-day review period which includes opportunities for the stakeholders, rightsholders and regulators to provide comments directly to CEAA.
I would like to impress upon the CAO, Councillors and Warden of the District of St. Mary’s the importance of voting yes or no to Atlantic Golds proposed mine sooner rather than later. The date to do this depends on when Atlantic Gold submits their Environmental Impact Statement which will start the ball rolling on the next stage of the Federal assessment process. Jim Millard, Manager Environmental and Permitting for Atlantic Gold told me that they intend on submitting the Environmental Impact Statement late August or early Sept 2019.
To date Council has hosted 3 out of 4 community meetings. Roughly 165 people attended in total and by my calculations there have been five people that spoke in favor of the mine and two undecided. The rest have been strongly against this proposed mine.
There are 4 players in this circle. The Paqtnkek Mi'kmaw First Nation, the municipality of District of St. Mary’s (including the community), The Province of Nova Scotia and Atlantic Gold, the proponent. Yes, the federal government has a big part, but the groups impacted are in a circle around Atlantic Gold. The obvious group most impacted by this mine will be the residence of St. Mary’s.
Municipal meeting held February 12 2019 at the Lions Hall in Sherbrooke, NS:
Question: Scott Beaver asked Council “if you could disclose who they hired to do the independent economic impact study of the proposed gold mine and if we could get a copy of it?”
Answer: CAO Marvin answered “we have not chosen anyone to do the study yet.”
I was taken back by this answer. Warden Mosher refers to this process taking years to complete. Although this is quite possible I believe Warden Mosher, Council and CAO Marvin need to put more stock into the Social Licence. Ms. Belanger reinforces this by the very letter she sent out to council. Ms. Belanger obviously knows the impact a community can have by not giving up their Social Licence. We are all aware that the decision of Council will be very much symbolic and not directly affect the outcome of this mine. I would like to point out that wars have been won largely on symbolism so indirectly council’s decision for or against will very much have impact. Ms. Belanger says they will submit a draft EIS later this year and Jim alludes to an August or September timeframe for delivery. According to Ms. Belanger they will allow time for the community to respond directly to them before submitting federally. Once the EIS is submitted officially to the Federal Assessment Agency the federal process allows a short time for the public to respond. This time frame was only a few weeks for the last two public comment periods and this one is the in my view the most important. This will be the second last opportunity for the public to comment. After this public comment period the federal government will take the public responses and Atlantic Golds Environmental Impact Statement and create an Environmental Assessment. This document will take time and a lot of energy but is built on Science, quality public submissions and I believe the premise that the community is for or against the mine. If the community is opposed to this project the time for council to strategically make a choice, if we have any hope in stopping this mine with a Social Licence, is prior to this public comment period.
The CAO, Councillors and Warden need to grasp the impact of a Social Licence and the urgency of a decision. I will try once again to impress this upon you. The Federal review process has historically been an approval process. Currently the federal assessment process is under a review or went through a review and is looking at strengthening community engagement. The panel review recommends that “results of public participation should have the potential to impact decision”. I believe the decision in early 2018 by the Provincial and the Federal government was historically made in Kamloops, BC in part due to this very review and the Social Licence the community and First Nations did not give up to the mining company. The decision stopped the proposed Ajax Copper/gold mine in its tracks. This as far as I can find is the first and sets a precedent in Canada. I feel this example will allow our Provincial government and Federal government the opportunity to say no to Atlantic Golds proposed mine for Cochrane Hill.
There is a strong possibility that the federal government will require Atlantic Gold to take back the EIS and redo parts of it. If this happens I believe there will be another comment period provided on that updated EIS. This will extend the process which we hope happens but to bank on that would be bad business and quite possibly a crucial mistake. The public comment period has a huge effect and by not making a decision prior is a gamble on the part of our council and what I believe to be our only opportunity to make a difference. We must remember that this is an approval process there is no other opportunity to have an influence than our public comment periods. I must ask how council will retain a company to do an economic impact study, possibly hold a plebiscite and vote for or against the mine in this short time frame. The community is depending on council to lead and to do that they simply must vote! This will allow the community and council to work together, come up with a cooperative strategy and use our Social Licence to stop this mine. Ms. Belanger, President and COO, Director Atlantic Gold knows the process and knows that once we get past a certain point the Social Licence defence will no longer have influence. She most certainly does not have our community’s best interest in hand.
If Warden Mosher, Councillors and CAO want to gather data for 2 years I’m afraid that is very much going to be too late!
United we stand, divided we fall! We say NOPE!
Scott Beaver