Plan Nord a key support for Quebec miners
Politicians love to make announcements about infrastructure investment.
Less so when it comes to actually delivering the promised funding. That hasn’t been the case with Quebec’s Plan Nord.
First introduced in 2011 by the provincial Liberal government of Jean Charest, to spur development and investment in the northern reaches of the province, Plan Nord has encouraged mining investment in Quebec, even during some difficult times for the industry. (See our story on Page 16.) Plan Nord has resulted in some new infrastructure investment that has been instrumental to mining. Without the 240-km all-weather road that was built to Stornoway Diamond’s Renard mine, 360 km north of Chibougamau, for example, that operation would likely not have been developed and started production in 2016.
Direct investment by Quebec government agencies in mining companies and in infrastructure has provided key support and reassured international investors that the sector has the backing of the government. Both Stornoway and Nemaska Lithium, which is building the Whabouchi lithium mine 280 km north of Chibougamau, have credited that support for helping them land mine financings.
At presstime in September, Quebecers were gearing up for an Oct. 1 election.
Plan Nord may or may not survive a change in government, but a radical change in the approach to mining in Quebec – which is usually highly ranked in the Fraser Institutes annual mining surveys and has long had generous incentives for mineral exploration – would be surprising.
While one party, Québec Solidaire, has said it would look at potentially nationalizing the mining and forestry industries in the province if elected, polls at presstime projected that a minority government is likely – led either by the Liberals or Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ). CAQ’s leader François Legault has criticized permitting times for new mining projects in the province, pledging to reduce bureaucracy.
Also in this issue, we bring you Part 2 of our Electric Mine series of articles, which began in September with a profile of MacLean Engineering.
In this installment, we speak to Brent Bergeron of Goldcorp about the company’s decision to build the world’s first all-electric mine, Borden, in Ontario.
While more and more mines around the world are adopting battery powered equipment, none are yet completely diesel free. That’s in part because of limitations on battery technology that have rendered it less practical for larger machines or those that require large and sustained energy draws – haul trucks for example.
Indeed, Goldcorp’s development of Borden and work with partner OEMs there is driving the development of such new technology and paving the way for more fully electric mines to come. We’ll take a closer look at Borden in our December issue.
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