The fact that over 1,000 families could have had their main source of income taken away is bad enough, but what makes it worse is that it didn’t seem to even register in Ottawa or the rest of Canada
Nunavut’s biggest contributor to its overall gross domestic product just narrowly missed terminating more than 1,100 of its employees due to one thing: a lack of regulatory approvals.
The company, Baffinland Iron Mines, runs an open pit mining operation on North Baffin Island in the Arctic, which provides jobs to the local Inuit and is a significant contributor to the territory’s economy.
Jobs lost due to bureaucratic inaction seems to be a common story across the country these days. The fact that over 1,000 families could have had their main source of income taken away is bad enough, but what makes it worse is that it didn’t seem to even register in Ottawa or the rest of Canada.
The problem boils down to permitting. Baffinland had requested that it be allowed to increase production from 4.2- to six-million tonnes this year, as it has done for a number of years. The Nunavut Impact Review Board (NIRB), which makes recommendations to the federal government on whether to grant such permits, finally gave an answer on Sept. 23, nearly a month after it was asked and only two days before the termination notices were set to kick in.
For the rest of this column: https://nationalpost.com/opinion/peter-mackay-foot-dragging-on-baffinland-mine-approval-emblematic-of-a-government-that-doesnt-take-northern-workers-seriously