New Prosperity for the Tsilhqot’in First Nation
Taseko Mines is proposing to build a $1 billion dollar gold-copper mine in British Columbia. The New Prosperity mine plan includes $300 million to save Fish Lake in response to local First Nations concerns.
The final weeks of the First Nations community hearing sessions of the federal environmental assessment for New Prosperity Gold-Copper Mine witnessed emotional testimony from many Tsilhqot’in First Nations people.
These communities, many with strong family ties, are working to heal some pressing social issues by strengthening awareness of their traditional practice and heritage amongst their youth as well as amongst the general population.
We applaud their efforts and understand and respect the importance of those traditions. In many respects the panel hearing has been a helpful process in providing much needed dialogue and greater mutual understanding of our respective interests and opportunities.
Some of the panel testimony, however, much of it from outside special interests, has unfortunately been designed to misinform and divide.
The local communities have been told that the proposed mine will cause massive environmental damage and that somehow the rivers will be poisoned, the fish, animals, vegetables will all die or won’t be fit to use and that there will no longer be any place in the vast region to practice the traditions and rituals that are so important to their culture, their spirituality and their heritage.
All of this unfortunate misinformation leads to confusion, it leads to mistrust, and it leads to fear. Sadly that too has been a reality of the panel hearings.
This misinformation isn’t really about the New Prosperity project; rather, it seems to be about the establishment of rights and title and the authority of Canada and British Columbia to approve projects in the area.
Aboriginal rights have been proven in numerous places across Canada in various court decisions and the Tsilhqot’in First Nations themselves have proven rights to hunt, trap and trade in the area.
However there exists an element of confusion in some circles around what limitations, if any, the existence of proven or asserted aboriginal rights and title might mean not only to our project but to other industrial developments in Canada as well.
We know from Judge Vickers ruling in William v. British Columbia that the Tsilhqot’in could not establish aboriginal title in respect of the Fish Lake area (the location of New Prosperity) though he felt they could establish it in other areas. While that case is going to the Supreme Court of Canada, the findings of fact will not be reviewed by that court. As such, the Fish Lake area is perhaps the only place in Canada where we know aboriginal title does not exist.
Second, even where aboriginal title is proven to exist here, or in any other part of Canada, it is not inviolable. In the 1997 Supreme Court of Canada decision in Delgamuukw v. British Columbia the Court noted aboriginal title includes the right to choose the use to which land is put, but Canada’s then Chief Justice Lamer went on to say this:
“In my opinion, the development of agriculture, forestry, mining, and hydroelectric power… are the kinds of objectives that… in principle, can justify the infringement of aboriginal title.”
More recently, in 2004, Canada’s present Chief Justice McLachlin said this in Haida Nation v. British Columbia (Minister of Forests):
“The Aboriginal “consent” spoken of in Delgamuukw is appropriate only in cases of established rights, and then by no means in every case. Rather, what is required is a process of balancing interests, of give and take.”
Even though the Tsilhqot’in could not prove aboriginal title in the Fish Lake area, Taseko has engaged in give and take and we have made extraordinary accommodations to save Fish Lake through our redesigned New Prosperity project.
Taseko is making every effort to respect Tsilhqot’in history, and to ensure the effects of the mine are minimized or avoided through mitigation and, where appropriate, compensation.
It’s not within our company’s abilities to right all of the past wrongs. We believe our responsibility and duty is to be responsible now and into the future. We believe that New Prosperity is a unique opportunity that will benefit all the people of the Cariboo.
We want to work closely with the Tsilhqot’in and Shuswap First Nations in the region, in a spirit of reconciliation. Our door is open and we look forward to future discussions.
*Russell Hallbauer is President & CEO of Taseko Mines Limited.
Comments