Ajax open house gets off to a nervous start

Shortly after the doors opened for the first day of the Ajax open house Monday, the room was busy with about 60 members of the public, what seemed like a hundred consultants, and three or four uniformed security people.

Nobody had much of an idea as to why the rent-a-cops were there. Beyond vague assurances that their presence didn’t mean much, the Environmental Assessment Office reps had no explanation.

“I don’t really know,” said one.

The yellow-jacketed security folk weren’t talking, either. “No comment,” one said when I asked if she was there to make sure nobody ripped off the displays.

A clue might be found in a Venture Kamloops press release yesterday afternoon that warned: “For safety reasons, additional signs, posters, and demonstrations will not be permitted inside the Kamloops Towne Lodge during the information sessions.”

Meanwhile, around the authorized placards that stood on tripods explaining the possible impacts of the mine, people asked the consultants questions about air quality, the effect of blasting on Jacko Lake, and so on.

It was hard to read the ratio of supporters to detractors, but the interest early in the day suggested there will be substantial numbers of both by the time the two-day session wraps up at 8 tonight.

I can’t fault the B.C. or Canadian EAOs for this part of the process; one only hopes they’ll lighten up a little on their nervousness about the manners of Kamloopsians. I can’t remember the last time an open house turned into a riot; rude remarks are about the limit of loutishness here in the colonies.

And we’ll save that for the town-hall meetings the EAO has ordered up from KGHM Ajax. Chris Hamilton of the EAO said mine proponents are expected to submit a plan for the town halls in the next short while.

Some of this is new ground for the EAO, which is more used to dealing with environmental questions than it is trying to handle such ravenous public hunger for information about a project.

(Incidentally, Jim Whittaker, Ajax’s project manager, told me the short list for a communications officer for the corporate Seymour Street office is down to a couple of candidates.)

It’s a curiosity that the same groups who have been demanding input, accountability and transparency have decided — with the assent or encouragement of the EAO, I’m not sure which — that meetings of a new community advisory group should be held behind closed doors.

That was the outcome of the first EAO-sponsored meeting of the group last week. During yesterday’s open house, Amber Cowie of the B.C. Grasslands Conservation Council explained committee members are more comfortable without an audience.

Ah, the eternal rationale of those who espouse transparency — for everyone else.

Putting it in context, the project continues to roll along largely in shadow. For example, the Environmental Assessment Working Group, consisting largely of provincial government bureaucrats along with First Nations and a City of Kamloops rep, has met rarely and, when it does, it’s behind closed doors.

And environmentalists have previously been refused permission to tape meetings with EAO officials.

Cowie said she’d give it some thought as terms of reference for the new committee are finalized. I got the sense she understands the contradiction.

Open houses and town halls are an important part of the consultation package. So are open meetings.

mrothenburger@kamloopsnews.ca