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Aboriginal and Inuit Mining and Oil/Gas

Federal watchdog snaps at climate, Indigenous gaps in Ottawa’s critical minerals strategy – by Colin McClelland (Northern Miner – November 7, 2024)

https://www.northernminer.com/

Canada’s auditor general criticized the federal critical minerals strategy for not adequately probing the impact increased mining will have on the environment and Indigenous communities.

The government program issued in 2022 budgets $3.8 billion on critical minerals support over eight years. Yet, the strategy doesn’t properly measure results and progress on ecosystems and First Nations, the Office of the Auditor General, the government’s own watchdog, said in a report on Thursday. The matters included greenhouse gas emissions, the protection of culturally significant sites and improvements to local living conditions, it said.

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Court to assess $510M in legal fees related to Robinson Huron Treaty annuities case – by Aya Dufour and Jonathan Migneault (CBC News Sudbury – November 5, 2024)

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/sudbury/

Atikameksheng Anishnawbek and Garden River First Nation argue legal fees were too high

A judge has ruled in favour of two First Nations in northern Ontario that have argued $510 million in legal fees related to the $10-billion Robinson Huron treaty annuities settlement should be assessed. Justice Jana Steele says the court will conduct an assessment of the lawyers’ fees.

Atikameksheng Anishnawbek and Garden River First Nation challenged the $510-million legal bill earlier in May. Both communities are part of 21 First Nations involved in the landmark annuities case.

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Environmental NGOs love using First Nation land issues for profit – by Geoff Russ (National Post – November 5, 2024)

https://nationalpost.com/

Is there a natural resource project being built somewhere in Canada? Does it overlap with the title land, reserve lands, or other jurisdictions of a First Nation? If so, expect green NGOs to turn it into another dramatic episode so they can keep fundraising.

It has been 53 years since the infamous “Crying Indian” ad was released, but it still provides the template for how environmentalist NGOs co-opt and intrude into Indigenous affairs. Made by an American NGO called Keep America Beautiful, the ad showed a tear running down the face of a Native American, dressed like he was plucked from the set of a John Wayne movie.

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Manitoba eyes speedier approval, more Indigenous involvement in mining sector – by Steve Lambert (Canadian Press – November 4, 2024)

https://www.thecanadianpressnews.ca/

WINNIPEG – The Manitoba government has released a new critical mineral strategy that it says will speed up projects and better involve First Nation communities.

The 24-page document says a new office will be created to guide businesses through the various permitting processes and highlight available incentives. The plan also says the province will develop a revenue-sharing model for mining in collaboration with Indigenous nations.

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NEWS RELEASE: NORWAY HOUSE CREE NATION IS PLEASED TO ANNOUNCE THAT IT HAS PURCHASED THE MINAGO NICKEL PLATINUM GROUP ELEMENTS PROJECT FROM FLYING NICKEL MINING CORP. (November 1, 2024)

Economic Benefits of over $700M and Approximately 500 Direct Jobs for Manitoba First Nations  

The Chief and Council of Norway House Cree Nation (NHCN) has been working with Flying Nickel for 4 years to advance this project. The NHCN purchase of the project was supported by 99% of all Flying Nickel shareholders in the Special Meeting held on October 21, 2024.

Chief Larson Anderson of NHCN confirms that “By taking full control with 100% ownership and management, we can drive this project forward, focus on the environment, maximize employment, and build economic opportunities for our people.”

The Minago Project is located on the NHCN Resource Management Area, 107 km north of Grand Rapids and 450 km north of Winnipeg, Manitoba, adjacent to Highway 6. The Minago project property comprises 94 mining claims, covering 192.36 km2, and two mining leases, covering 4.25 km2 along with the core storage and management facility in Grand Rapids.

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Northwest First Nation not sold on open-pit mining project – by Ian Ross (Northern Ontario Business – November 1, 2024)

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

Indigenous-led impact assessment initiated and community capacity-building funding to flow for disputed Springpole gold project

Northwestern Ontario mine developer First Mining Gold has entered into a “process agreement” with Cat Lake First Nation and Lac Seul First Nation in support of a community-based Anishinaabe-led Impact Assessment (ALIA) of the company’s Springpole Gold Project.

An Oct. 31 First Mining Gold news release said the agreement provides a framework between the company and the two area Indigenous communities to “have procedural clarity and meaningful participation” in the review of Springpole “through the unique cultural perspective of the Anishinaabe people.”

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The transition to closure: The Diavik diamond mine in the Northwest Territories is approaching closure in early 2026, but Rio Tinto aims to leave a positive legacy – by Ailbhe Goodbody (CIM Magazine – October 28, 2024)

https://magazine.cim.org/en/

Rio Tinto’s Diavik diamond mine in the Northwest Territories is set to close in approximately 18 months after almost a quarter of a century of operations. Over 144 million carats of rough diamonds have been recovered at Diavik through a combination of open-pit and underground mining since it entered commercial production in 2003, and the mine is a major contributor to the economy of the Northwest Territories, accounting for more than 10 per cent of the territory’s gross domestic product.

The current mine plan anticipates that operations will cease in the first quarter of 2026, followed by a transition to closure activities from 2026 to 2029. However, the mine was designed with closure in mind from the outset, and Rio Tinto hopes to leave a lasting beneficial impact in the region after its closure activities end in 2029, while limiting its carbon footprint at the same time.

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Cree hold ‘eye-opening’ discussions on how development happens in northern Quebec – by Cole Bosum (CBC News North – September 27, 2024)

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/

Leaders meet with Cree traditional hunters and trappers last week to talk development

How development happens in Cree communities and who benefits was front and centre at a recent meeting between Cree leaders and many hunters, trappers and land users from the inland communities in northern Quebec.

Close to 300 hunters and tallymen, as traditional land users are called in Quebec, were registered for the meeting that happened in Mistissini last week, but organizers say closer to 500 were in the room. “The meeting for me was a real eye-opening experience,” said Mandy Gull-Masty, the grand chief of the Cree nation in northern Quebec.

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How Quebec Cree avoided the fate of Attawapiskat – by Terry Milewski (CBC News Politics – May 14, 2013)

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/

Please note that his article is from 2013!!

On the eastern shore of James Bay, a very different story

Freezing, mouldy homes. Sewage contamination. Sick kids. Unemployment. A blockade on the road to the mine. A hunger strike by the chief. That, it seems, is the news from the Cree of James Bay — at least, as it’s defined by the desperate community of Attawapiskat, in northern Ontario.

Before that, there was the news from nearby Kashechewan. Flooding. Despair. Suicide. And both James Bay towns endured fresh emergencies this spring as the annual meltwaters exposed, again, their rickety infrastructure.

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Times of ‘Wild West’ in mining are over: Agnico Eagle – by Arty Sarkisian (Nunatsiaq News – October 28, 2024)

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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.

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Utah has the last conventional uranium mill in the country. What does it do? – by Anastasia Hufham (Salt Lake Tribune – October 7, 2024)

https://www.sltrib.com/

The mill’s owner and regulators say there’s no evidence its uranium processing is causing contamination. But a nearby tribe and others fear the impacts of increased demand.

San Juan County – Trucks filled with thousands of pounds of rock roll up a paved road, the namesake twin buttes of Bears Ears National Monument visible in the distance on a clear day. The dark gray rock is uranium ore headed to the White Mesa Mill in Utah’s rural San Juan County — the last remaining “conventional” uranium mill in the United States.

The country’s other 14 uranium recovery sites solely process rock from the site where they’re located. This leaves White Mesa as the only American uranium mill still accepting ore and other radioactive materials from around the country and the world.

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Conservationists raise alarm bells over James Bay lowlands (Timmins Daily Press – October 26, 2024)

https://www.timminspress.com/

First Nation says plan is crucial for global climate goals

Mushkegowuk Council released a statement Thursday, Oct. 24, urging Ontario to join as a partner on a conservation plan they say is crucial to the global efforts to protect land and water. For their part, the province says their talks with the federal government on conservation efforts are ongoing.

“Minister Rickford has met with Mushkegowuk council on several occasions to discuss shared priorities,” wrote Curtis Lindsay, spokesperson for the minister of Indigenous affairs, in an email. “Ontario is continuing discussions with the federal government on how to move forward collaboratively on conservation projects that fall under provincial jurisdiction,” Lindsay wrote.

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Why this town in the Northwest Territories was called the ‘Village of Widows’ – by Nina Dragicevic (CBC Docs – October 25, 2024)

https://www.cbc.ca/documentaries/

The discovery of a rare rock amidst the tundra of Canada’s Far North nearly 100 years ago set in motion one of mankind’s most destructive legacies: Decades of mining, workers getting sick and, finally, a pair of atomic bombs that killed tens of thousands of civilians in an instant — and changed the world forever.

As author and professor Peter van Wyck says in the documentary Atomic Reaction: “This is a piece of Canadian history that doesn’t get talked about much.” It all started near Délı̨nę, a community on Great Bear Lake in the Northwest Territories, where the Sahtu Dene people have lived for thousands of years. Originally a nomadic people, they started settling more firmly at Délı̨nę in the 1940s.

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Meliadine gold mine: The ‘largest hotel’ in Nunavut – by Arty Sarkisian (Nunatsiaq News – October 21, 2024)

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Mine has more employees than the population of many Nunavut hamlets

Agnico Eagle’s Meliadine gold mine has approximately 1,500 employees. That’s about half the size of the population of nearby Rankin Inlet and slightly more than Clyde River. But only about 700 people live and work on the site at all times, which is still more than the populations of Grise Fiord, Resolute Bay and Chesterfield Inlet put together.

The mine’s employees live side by side in what they call the “biggest hotel in Nunavut” and their collective efforts produce about one gold brick a day that is roughly the size of a loaf of bread.

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Who will pay for Ontario’s radioactive past? – by Aya Dufour (CBC News Features – October 15, 2024)

https://www.cbc.ca/newsinteractives/

One northern remediation project illustrates the complexity of the issue

If not for the fences and the signs, nothing’s obviously threatening about the radioactive waste that has plagued Nipissing First Nation for decades. It looks like sandy soil peppered with small rocks. Behind the benign appearance, however, are niobium and other naturally occurring radioactive materials that were left behind by a defunct mining operation dating back to the early days of the Cold War.

With the company long gone and the Ministry of Mines busy remediating and monitoring the other 5,865 abandoned mining projects in Ontario, the waste has just sat there for 67 years.

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