Giant loss of credibility

It’s bad enough that its past policies on mining appear to have amounted to nothing more than an effort to rake in royalties. But if its clean-up plan for Giant Mine didn’t cause alarm before, it should now that it seems to involve a bottomless pit of taxpayers’ money.

This is what’s become apparent following an Alternatives North access-to-information request of a Giant Mine remediation report dated Sept. 1 that shows the projected clean-up costs at $903 million – twice as much as previously reported.

The clean-up price tag for Giant Mine has been catapulting upward like a puck in a carnival strongman game ever since the government took over the abandoned mine site in 1999.

But most assumed it would eventually strike the bell like the territorial government did with the Deh Cho Bridge, which finally rang in at $202 million after an estimated cost of $55 million the previous decade.

However, as the progress report reveals, taxpayers may have to shell out a lot more money on Giant Mine, including annual maintenance costs that presumably will carry on forever as 237,000 tonnes of arsenic trioxide remains frozen underground. The costs have turned the Giant Mine project into a money pit for taxpayers. Canada made only $454 million from the operation – in 2002 dollars – not counting the costs of forever maintaining the site.

Unfortunately, the revised $903 million wasn’t revealed during public hearings into the federal government’s clean-up plans in September, even though the government has known about the true cost estimates since as early as last March.

This is nothing less than a black eye for the federal government. Despite having a small army of information people on staff, supposedly there to answer people’s questions on this project, the government chose to keep a lid on this embarrassing figure. What’s the point if it’s only going to be dredged up by people who are already skeptical of the government’s clean-up plans?

Meanwhile, it has yet to explain why it has withheld the revamped figures from this newspaper and the House of Commons when asked by Western Arctic MP Dennis Bevington.

The Department of Aboriginal and Northern Affairs can point all it wants to its information kiosks and the soft-pedalled columns it submits to this newspaper as evidence of keeping the public informed.

But when Alternatives North digs up this kind of dirt while the department is trying to strong-arm the Mackenzie Valley Environmental Impact Review Board and other levels of government into accepting a supposedly urgent surface cleanup this summer, it does so without an ounce of credibility.

Meanwhile, as a devolution agreement with Ottawa approaches final approval, the GNWT is insisting it can do a better job ensuring future mine sites under its watch will be cleaned up properly.
Part of the GNWT’s strategy for better oversight includes enhanced site inspections and ensuring companies post the necessary bonds to cover future reclamation efforts.

“We’re certainly a more accessible and transparent government,” Martin Goldney, the GNWT’s chief devolution negotiator, told Yellowknifer last week.

Well time will tell, won’t it?