Why the current Mineral Tenure Act must go

LETTER — In The B.C. Guide to Watershed Law & Planning we read: “The Mineral Tenure Act governs the granting of mineral exploration/exploitation rights within the province… [It] sets out the process for individuals to acquire and maintain mineral tenures.

The Ministry encourages the recording, exploration and development of coal and mineral claims, on the basis that it is good for the economy and for regional development. Because tax revenue also flows from mineral exploration and development, mining is also regarded as good for provincial coffers.

Unfortunately, therefore, environmental considerations are sometimes viewed as an ‘obstacle’ to economic development.“ Read it carefully again!

Consider just one absurdity that may arise from this. I purchase the mineral rights for part of the city for $35.00. It can be done. So now I, with mineral rights papers in my hand, bent on exploitation for private gain, can dig a pothole by the side of the road. The city may consider my hole a road hazard, but it cannot do anything about it: it has no jurisdiction.

My pothole project is representing “regional development,” and may therefore override the plans of the city I live in. The city is helpless: the law is behind me. Absurd? Now consider that my name is Ajax, have just arrived from Poland, and can dig a REALLY BIG hole right on the middle of the road of the city’s planned development!

The city may be really concerned now, this big hole can create many problems for it: air and water pollution, slope stabilization problems in a prime residential area next to it, lowering property values and tax revenue, etc., but thanks to our Mineral Tenure act, the city is as helpless as before.

The Act itself hearkens back to our colonial past. It was intended to ensure that the colonizing power may develop/exploit the resources of the colony as freely as possible, without much regard to native/local interests. Although tinkered with several times in recent years (2004, 2007, 2008, 2010 and 2012), clarifying such things as when the land owner should be notified, (!) its intent and effect has essentially remained unchanged in spite of all these “modernizing changes.”

In the age of globalization our own Mineral Tenure Act (generally supported by the not-necessarily-true myth that what is good for the foreign investor has to be also good for our economy), has been rendering us vulnerable to world wide development/exploitation.

At long last at least one level of government (the municipal one) is recognizing that fact and is trying to do something about it. The motion passed at the recent Conference of B.C. Municipalities observes, in part, that “the present Mineral Tenure Act gives no weight to other economic activities, current or future, in areas affected by mining claims including tourism, forestry and farming. Local governments and First Nations deserve greater latitude to shape their economic development paths and protect the full range of their residents’ interests.”

It’s a no-brainer. This old colonial Act has to go and new laws must be written urgently. Why? Well, the “individuals” in the Act are turning out to be international corporations from anywhere in the world (in Kamloops’ case the Polish KGHM), and the Act casts our city, natives and all, in the role of being the “unfortunate obstacles to development.”

If conflicting (i.e. “tournament capital” versus “mining town”), all our own plans of development (including the city’s planned growth to the South), are simply shunted aside as another obstacle to “regional development.” The growth of our city to the South will be effectively stopped. Let this sink in!

It is not hard to see why we cannot count on our provincial or federal politicians to protect us from corporate development/exploitation, especially now, when our Premier is declaring our province to be “open for business” to the world.

I am afraid the fight to change the Mineral Tenure Act will not be easily won. We should be very vocal in supporting our municipal governments, otherwise the interests of provincial and federal coffers, not to mention the all-powerful international business lobby, is very likely to stymie this much needed change and our municipalities, along with ourselves, shall remain explored/exploited and disenfranchised.

FRANK VESZELY