https://www.mining-technology.com/
Canadian voters have returned liberal prime minister Justin Trudeau to office for a second term, albeit with a significantly reduced share of the vote. Mining Technology reviews the impacts of his first term on Canadian mining, and, with a minority government looming, considers how the sector could be affected over the next four years.
With more than 60 minerals and metals currently being pulled from Canadian soil, the mining industry is a major contributor to the national economy. Mining is responsible for 620,000 jobs and 19% of domestic imports, alongside making a US$97bn contribution to the country’s GDP.
However, the rapid expansion of mining operations have introduced a number of problems . The sector’s greenhouse gas emissions have more than tripled from 22.5 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (mtCO2e) in 1990 to 74.5mtCO2e in 2016, and some of the most harmful environmental impacts remain unknown, with a 2016 government report finding that 35% of mining facilities profiled by the state provided “incomplete effluent monitoring information”, raising the possibility that over a third of the country’s mines are leaking harmful tailings into local environments.
There is also a social cost to mining, with many of the country’s most valuable mineral deposits owned by indigenous groups, who are typically left out of power structures responsible for dividing up the country into mining zones and awarding mining licences.
While the election of Justin Trudeau at the head of the Liberal Party in 2015 smoothed over some of these tensions between protection and profits, with Trudeau himself walking a line between taxing industry majors while encouraging alternative projects, these conflicts may not have been resolved in this month’s election. With Trudeau leading a minority government and new voices pushing for change in policy, Canada’s mining future remains uncertain.
For the rest of this article: https://www.mining-technology.com/features/what-trudeaus-re-election-means-for-mining-in-canada/