Prince George, B.C.-   The recent ruling by the Supreme Court of Canada on the process for permitting mines brought mixed reactions from the B.C. Mining Association.

Pierre Gratton, President of the B.C. Mining Association says the ruling cleared the way for the Red Chris mine to go ahead, but on the down side, the ruling means the Federal Government will have to do a full comprehensive environmental assessment on future projects, even though the Provincial Government does a full comprehensive environmental assessment.   At issue was the manner in which the Federal Government had decided to only look at part of the project instead of the entire proposal.

The Provincial and Federal Government have been working on developing a single review/assessment process which would speed up the decision making and reduce duplication of work. Pierre Gratton says that is the way to go “Even when the Federal Government does a comprehensive assessment, they rely on the province for 90% of the work” He says the current system, which the Supreme Court has upheld is a total duplication of work.

Gratton says he expects the Federal Government will bring in new legislation to streamline the process and make a single review system because the workload is too much for the Federal Government to handle. “The Feds understand they’ve got a problem, they know they’re not managing the system well, how much they change it remains to be seen.”