Water, air and land should be our ‘sacred sons and daughters’

New Brunswick Minister of Natural Resources John Herron attended a gathering of the Peace and Friendship Alliance in Fredericton on July 5. The alliance of Indigenous peoples and settlers confronts government failures in overseeing resource extraction projects and in honouring the Peace and Friendship treaties. When responding to questions from the assembled guests, the minister made some alarming comments that provide insight into the current mindset of the Holt government.

Peace and Friendship Alliance members expressed concerns about the U.S. Department of Defence providing $20 million for a renewed economic feasibility study of the Sisson Mine project. When asked about the status of this new economic feasibility study, the minister said an updated economic feasibility study would have nothing to do with government opinions on the mine’s feasibility, and that renewed feasibility studies only held interest and relevance for “investors” and the “investment community.”

Herron seems to lack an understanding and appreciation that the government and its taxpayers will collectively constitute the largest single investor in the mine, with hundreds of millions of dollars promised in upgraded power lines, electric power subsidies, countless hours of civil servant attention, and potential shortfalls in funds for reclamation and water treatment costs in the future. The minister would be well advised to do his homework.

The minister also conveyed the Holt government’s dedication to “getting it right” with mineral extraction in the future. This is a hollow promise, given that past governments and the current government have not honoured the law and the regulations that were designed to protect the province’s water. Indeed, the minister seems to have an alarming lack of appreciation of the province’s water, declaring that New Brunswick’s “minerals should be treated as the province’s sacred sons and daughters”; not to be bargained off to the highest bidder. I think many people in New Brunswick would contest this assessment and be of the opinion that the province’s water, air and land should be our “sacred sons and daughters.”

Successive governments from Bernard Lord to Susan Holt have abused the Water Classification Regulation in hopes of smoothing the rails for the mining industry, while cynically purporting to have legislation in place to protect water. If the Holt government wants to “get things right,” it can start by correcting the injustice imposed on the Nashwaak Watershed in the Environmental Impact Assessment process, and ensure that such injustice is not perpetrated on watersheds in future EIAs of the mining projects that the government is so keen to advance.

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