Washington tariff circus arrives. Send in the clowns

With the emergence of critical minerals as an issue in Ukraine/Russia peace talks, and given the arrival of the Washington tariff circus in New Brunswick, it is not surprising to see a cast of faux-experts, pseudo-economists and outright grifters waving the Canadian flag as they float hot-air balloons about New Brunswick’s missed opportunities in critical minerals. Most recently, New Brunswick Premier Susan Holt has floated the province’s critical minerals as leverage in the US/Canada trade war.

One has to marvel at the rapidity and resourcefulness with which the industrial complex can muster talking heads, ink and political persuasion, when opportunity presents itself. Over the last weeks, we have witnessed a variety of academics and so-called experts, expounding how the Sisson Mine Project represents an underutilized weapon to counter Trump’s threatened tariffs. We are led to believe that it is the selfish interests of NGO environmental groups and Indigenous objections that have stifled this project.

These assertions would be laughable if they were not so injurious to the cause of advancing Canadian independence from the U.S. elephant now leaning on our collective heart and soul.

The Sisson Mine

The mythical Sisson Mine is a proposed open-pit tungsten and molybdenum mine destined for the remnant hills of the Appalachian Range in the pristine Nashwaak Watershed of Central New Brunswick north of Fredericton. First explored in the 1950s, and first formally proposed by Geodex Minerals in 2008 during a spike in metal prices, this mining project has hung like an anchor chain around the neck of the province ever since. The project was taken over by Northcliff Resources of Vancouver in 2012, and is currently majority controlled by Todd Minerals of New Zealand. Stock in Northcliff now runs around 2 1/2 cents per share.

The Sisson Mine project has never made economic sense and never will. There may be a lot of tungsten ore at the site, but the mineral concentration is so poor that the costs of digging and processing the ore, and the costs of storing the waste are so expensive and environmentally damaging that the project is doomed from the start.

Proponents have publicly acknowledged that it would be too expensive to build and operate the mine at accepted Best Available Practices and Best Available Technology. The proponents have also failed to provide the required plan and financial securities for post-closure reclamation and water treatment to protect the Nashwaak watershed.

Todd Minerals similarly bankrolled the Hemerdon tungsten Mine near Plymouth in the UK in 2014. That mine attempted to exploit tungsten ore two and a half times as rich as the ore at Sisson. The capital and operating costs at Hemerdon were similar to those at Sisson. The Hemerdon Mine never made a cent in three years of operation, lost $100 Million over those three years and was dismantled and closed forever in 2018.

The proponents of Sisson have been given every break imaginable to fulfill their obligations under the Environmental Impact Assessment Conditions of Approval, but nine years after the fact, they have not complied. The province refuses to let go of the false hope of this doomed venture, hoping it can pull the wool over the eyes of the feds who are handing out dollars to critical mineral miners hand-over-fist. Trump’s tariffs and Canadian patriotic fervor cannot turn this penny stock lemon into a flower.

Going forward

Citizens and politicians alike should not be fooled by the carpet-bag rhetoric of some of the talking heads attempting to resurrect the moribund Sisson project. We are at a critical juncture in our nation’s history and financial resources to confront the challenges ahead will be limited. We should not be wasting scarce tax resources chasing a lost cause.

Lawrence Wuest is an ecologist living in the Upper Nashwaak on unceded territory of the Wəlastəkwiyik, Mi’kmaq, and Peskotomuhkati.