Feds give nod to expansion plan for western Nunavut gold mine – by Jane George (Nunatsiaq News – October 15, 2018)

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But “high levels of Inuit employment” sought at TMAC Resources’ Madrid-Boston project

CAMBRIDGE BAY—The planned expansion for TMAC Resources Inc.‘s gold mine near Cambridge Bay has cleared one of its final hurdles.

On Friday, Caroline Bennett, minister of Crown-Indigenous relations, and Dominic LeBlanc, minister of intergovernmental and northern affairs and internal trade, issued a letter saying they accepted the Nunavut Impact Review Board’s recommendation to issue a project certificate for the company’s proposed Madrid-Boston project.

Last June, the review board spelled out 39 recommendations for the project. In their letter, dated Oct. 10, the ministers accepted all the terms and conditions recommended by the review board. But they agreed with a call from the Kitikmeot Inuit Association to tweak one recommendation on Inuit employment, so TMAC will now be obliged, through various committees, to report and examine “barriers and opportunities to achieving the high levels of Inuit employment.”

“Higher numbers of Inuit with meaningful employment on major infrastructure and resource development projects in Nunavut is an aspirational goal,” the ministers said in their letter to the review board.

The ministers also asked for a longer period to assess a planned transmission line and its impact on wildlife. TMAC said in a release today that it’s now looking forward to the Nunavut Water Board’s final hearing later this month in Cambridge Bay, which will focus on the water use, infrastructure and tailings deposition requirements.

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