TORONTO (miningweekly.com) – Predictably ruffling the feathers of some nongovernmental organisations, Canadian Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver’s letter bemoaning “environmental and other radical groups” trying to “hijack” the country’s regulatory system, not all were irate.

The Mining Association of Canada (MAC) on Tuesday gave him a pat on the back for penning the open letter published the previous day, saying the industry needed the more streamlined regulatory environment he wrote about “now more than ever”.

The industry association said Canada’s mining sector expected to spend over $137-billion over the next five years, and create more than 100 000 jobs over the next decade, “but only if we can have projects approved and built in a timely fashion”.

“The mining industry's ability to bring prosperity to communities across Canada is directly linked to an efficient and effective regulatory process,” MAC CEO Pierre Gratton said in a statement.

“We agree with the Minister's assertion that viable, responsibly developed mining projects should not die in the approval phase due to unnecessary delays.”

In his open letter, Oliver tore into unnamed environmental groups he said were receiving foreign funding, and were intent on blocking all major projects.

To illustrate his point, he gave the example of the western extension of Canada’s railways being built over the Rockies in about four years, while the Mackenzie Valley pipeline took about a decade to complete.

Oliver also used the example of where building a temporary ice arena on a frozen pond in Banff required the approval of the federal government, delaying the decision by two months.
 

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