Quebec mining reforms mired in bottomless pit of politics – by Sophie Cousineau (Globe and Mail – November 13, 2013)

The Globe and Mail is Canada’s national newspaper with the second largest broadsheet circulation in the country. It has enormous influence on Canada’s political and business elite.

MONTREAL — Amid a slew of bad mining news, this was a little gem: Quest Rare Minerals Ltd. plans to build a $1.3-billion plant in the Centre-du-Québec city of Bécancour to process heavy rare earth minerals, to be extracted from its Strange Lake deposit in Northern Quebec. The plant, billed as the largest facility of its kind in North America, will employ 300 people when it opens in 2017.

But just like rare earth minerals, which are essential to the production of myriads of electronic goods and gizmos, but whose supply is uncertain as top-producer China curtails its exports, such interesting projects are increasingly rare.

Recent surveys of mining executives conducted by the Institut de la Statistique du Québec point to a nearly 10-per-cent decrease in mining investment in the province this year, to a little over $4.6-billion. It would be the first decline for Canada’s top destination for mining investments in more than a decade, after a record 2012. And while 2013 will remain a good year by historical standards, the slide will likely continue, with a 28-per-cent drop in exploration spending expected to follow the already steep 26-per-cent fall of 2012.

That hole could get deeper with all the uncertainty that surrounds mining rules in the province. Waiting for an update of the province’s old mining law is like waiting for the Nordiques to return to Quebec City: Your faith is really put to the test.

Two weeks ago, opposition parties in the National Assembly shot down the Parti Québécois’s Bill 43, the third mining reform to be killed in close to four years.

The extensive powers the bill would have given to the minister of natural resources, who would have held a veto on all mining projects, were denounced as arbitrary by both mining executives and environmentalists, who feared lobbyist pressures. But it was also payback time for the Liberals. Their own mining reform was stalled by Natural Resources Minister Martine Ouellet when she sat in opposition; after countless hours of parliamentary work, the bill died when provincial elections were called.

As imperfect as the PQ’s reform was, it did strike a better balance between the rights of the mining companies and those of the municipalities before drilling equipment would tear up the ground. Among other measures, it required companies to set aside money to cover all of a mine’s projected restoration costs. This is a major issue in Quebec, where the commissioner of sustainable development pegs the clean-up costs of orphan mining sites at $1.2-billion, a costly liability for the cash-strapped province.

For the rest of this article, click here: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/quebec-mining-reforms-mired-in-bottomless-pit-of-politics/article15401839/#dashboard/follows/