LandKeepers News Archive
No more free rides for the mining industry
May 04 2009 | News Articles | Montreal Gazette
No more free rides for the mining industry
The Gazette
May 4, 2009
Mining companies in Canada and the U.S. have been hit by the global economic slump. Until recently, however, they had been doing spectacularly well. In 2007, they made more than $80 billion in net profits.
That’s a lot of money, more than enough to permit them to both satisfy their shareholders and be good corporate citizens. Canadian mining engineering, which is respected worldwide, gives companies a lot of capability to do the right thing.
And yet they do not always do so. For this we cannot blame the companies alone. In Canada, as in the U.S., governments have made it easy for miners to continue spewing toxic wastes into the environment. And in Quebec, some miners hardly pay royalties for the value they extract from the land. It’s time for the free ride to come to an end.
Until now, Canadian mining companies have not even had to report publicly the amount of pollution they emit annually. But now the Federal Court has ordered Environment Canada to collect information on the full extent of mining pollution – and to make that information available to Canadians.
It will likely come as a shock to most Canadians to find out how much pollution Canada’s mining companies emit. They have been the only companies exempted from federal environment rules on public filings on pollution. Once accurate information is filed, Canada’s mining-generated pollution could, in proportion, rival the nasty U.S.
picture:
In 2005, mining operations south of the border made up less than one-half a per cent of all industries required to file pollution reports, but accounted for 27 per cent of all pollutants released, more than 530 million kilograms of toxic waste dumped into waterways or left on the ground.
Quebec’s mine problems don’t end there: A hard-hitting report last month by Quebec’s auditor-general found that the province not only collects almost no royalties from mining companies, but is often stuck with the bill for cleaning up abandoned and disused mines.
The auditor found that between 2002 and 2008, 14 mining companies paid no royalties at all, although their net annual production amounted to $4.2 billion. Other mining companies paid royalties of $259 million over 2002-2008, representing about 1.5 per cent of their net production. That sum – $259 million – which equalled 12 per cent of the companies’ profits, was reported to be less than the tax breaks Quebec gave the companies.
Mining companies should be expected to clean up the messes they create. In Quebec, they are required to deposit a guarantee of 70 per cent of the projected clean-up costs. (Ontario insists on a 100-per-cent cost deposit.) But in examining 25 files, the auditor found the guarantees actually covered less than a third of costs. We can’t imagine how the government can justify such laxity.
A Université du Québec à Montréal researcher, Ugo Lapointe, writing in the Institut des sciences de l’environnement forum, calculated the cost to Quebecers of abandoned mines this way:
Environmental liability, $264 million; government incentives minus royalties paid, $368 million; state-guaranteed risks for the 25 mines, $243 million. Total amount Quebec taxpayers were on the hook for: $875 million. Total income of the 25 mines from 2002-2008: More than $15 billion.
Quebec needs to clean up its act – and its mines.
© Copyright © The Montreal Gazette
http://www.montrealgazette.com/more+free+rides+mining+industry/1560198/story.html
This Entry is Not Tagged. Click here to Add Tags