Ajax locomotive getting tougher and tougher to derail

More and more, Ajax is looking like a 270,000-pound locomotive that can’t be derailed.

“It’s ours to lose,” was how project manager Jim Whittaker put it when I sat down Tuesday with him, chief executive officer Marcin Mostowy and community relations manager Norm Thompson.

Our boardroom chat was at least the second for the trio with media that day. Whittaker and Thompson are familiar faces, but this get-together served as a meet-the-press for Mostowy — though he’s been in Canada for a year and a half and says he’s been to Kamloops several times.

He has something of the manner of an accountant and, indeed, he holds a master of finance degree from Wroclaw University of Economics in Poland, and graduated from the London Business School. Before being assigned to guide the Ajax project from its Vancouver office, he was a risk manager for KGHM.

During our discussion, it immediately became clear he’s a strong defender of KGHM both on its environmental and labour relations record (see related letter on this page).

We hadn’t gotten very far before I mused about the split in public opinion, and was about to ask if the partners had done any polling when Thompson pulled out a document called the KGHM Ajax Perception Audit, a poll done by an outfit called NRG Research Group.

NRG is described by Industry Canada as a “leading North American public opinion and market research company,” with offices in Vancouver, Calgary, Winnipeg and Toronto, and associates in Halifax, Montreal and the U.S.

So anyone harbouring the hope that NRG is some home-office pollster that knocks off surveys to suit whoever signs the cheque, or that the poll is off the mark, should think again.

Polling companies live on their reputations, and those reputations depend on valid results obtained from carefully worded questions and rigorously controlled random sampling methodology. But every pollster will tell you his results are good only on the day they’re done — public opinion can turn on a dime, as was demonstrated in the recent Alberta election.

The NRG results come down to one thing — this issue, at the time the twin surveys were taken last September and again last month, has divided the community down the middle. The 52-48 split pro and con, when the plus-or-minus five-per-cent margin of error is considered, means the race for the hearts and minds of the Kamloops public is dead even.

Could it change dramatically, like that Alberta election or so many other political trends? Well, it could, but issues polling tends to show more consistent results than political polls do.

In my humble view, minds have been made up on Ajax, and there’s not much that can change them. The bad news for opponents is that 50-50 isn’t going to get them where they want to be.

The best hope for the stop-Ajax side is that politics intervenes. Now, politicians — including City council and those at senior levels — will feel enabled to vote for the business benefits of the mine.

KGHM Ajax, meanwhile, will stay the course of gradual, controlled public relations. The answer to the question of town hall meetings, for example, was pretty clear in the responses that came across the table on Tuesday — not likely.

As Whittaker said, they feel it’s theirs to lose.