People remain suspicious of resource extraction even though more regulations are in place, says company director
Many Nunavummiut have misconceptions about mining, says Pujjuut Kusugak. Kusugak is the director of Nunavut affairs for Agnico Eagle, which operates multiple gold mines in Nunavut. “People still remember how mines used to operate — Wild West do whatever you want, no safety concerns,” he said in an interview with Nunatsiaq News at the Agnico Eagle office in Rankin Inlet.
People assume that the company still “does whatever it wants,” he added, but today Nunavut has some of the strictest regulations that protect the environment using both territorial and federal laws. Meliadine mine would have been “shut down” very quickly if it was operating the same way mines used to operate, Kusugak said.
Nunatsiaq News visited the Meliadine gold mine on Oct. 2 to learn about the impact the mine — which started operations in June 2019 and is expected to have produced two million ounces of gold in November — has on the economy, society and environment of Nunavut.
Meliadine mine is located 25 kilometres north of Rankin Inlet and is one of the three sites Agnico Eagle operates in Nunavut, along with the nearby Meadowbank complex and a gold exploration project Hope Bay, which is 125 kilometres southwest of Cambridge Bay.
For the rest of this article: https://nunatsiaq.com/stories/article/times-of-wild-west-in-mining-are-over-agnico-eagle/