Enviro minister to get polite invite from council to visit on Ajax

NEWS — Federal environment minister Leona Aglukkaq will get an invitation from City council to visit Kamloops even though council won’t press her further on the issue of a federal panel review of the Ajax mine proposal.

Council discussed a letter from Aglukkaq today in which the minister said she’ll stay the course with a joint review between the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency and the B.C. Environment Assessment Office instead of switching to a panel review.

Coun. Tina Lange pointed out Aglukkaq’s letter appears to suggest the two processes are similar.

“They’re not the same,” said Lange. “The federal review would give you 20 days of public consultation and review.”

She moved that council write Aglukkaq telling her so.

That didn’t sit well with other councillors. “To what end?” asked Coun. Arjun Singh. Though he, too, supports it, a federal panel review “is not going to happen.”

He said too much public consultation can “jam up the process” and said there’s been plenty of engagement on Ajax. “People have stated their case on both sides of the issue.”

Singh said it would be better to make the best of the current process “rather than banging our head against the wall.”

Coun. Nancy Bepple agreed with Singh.

“You can’t keep going up to bat and hoping you’ll have a home run,” she said, suggesting that instead of another letter to the minister, the City issue a press release “just to say where we are at in the process.”

Coun. Marg Spina said, like Singh, she supports a review panel but “there’s no new news.”

Mayor Peter Milobar said he has nothing against writing another letter but didn’t want to get into a “semantics match” with Aglukkaq. He suggested he write saying the City will stay on top of the issue.

The motion passed with his approach rather than Lange’s, plus an invitation to come for a visit, suggested by Coun. Donovan Cavers. Aglukkaq’s predecessor Peter Kent visited Kamloops for a look at the mine site two years ago.