When it comes to the Sisson mine, Holt has been drinking the corporate Kool-Aid

With the inclusion of these two contradicting paragraphs in New Brunswick’s Speech from the Throne, Premier Susan Holt has devastated all hope that she has the economic smarts or environmental sensitivity required in these difficult times.

“Preserving New Brunswick’s natural resources and ensuring a healthy environment  is critical for today’s residents and future generations. The Department of Environment and Local Government is leading specific initiatives aimed at protecting clean air and water, advancing sustainability, and adapting to environmental challenges that will help us enhance our province’s natural beauty and health.”

“The Sisson Mine is one of the largest undeveloped tungsten deposits in the world and contains significant molybdenum resources as well. With updated feasibility work now underway, the project is poised to become a major source of critical minerals essential to Canada’s economic security, defence sector, and clean energy future.”

If Holt cannot recognize the economic futility of this mine and the accompanying environmental tragedy that goes with it, then she has zero credibility to take this province anywhere but down the economic rabbit hole of past failed mining ventures like the Caribou disaster in northeastern New Brunswick.

Holt proposes that “Your government understands that these pressures require careful navigation and thoughtful decision-making.” She has only to look at the past ten years of the Sisson Project wallowing in the backwoods of economic futility to realize that the future will be filled with that same sad futility if the project goes ahead.

That future will be filled with air-borne arsenic devastating agriculture down the Nashwaak Watershed.

That future will also be replete with contaminated fugitive water escaping untreated from a poorly maintained tailing facility, and centuries of untreated waste water releases post closure.

That future will also be bogged down with the social and health consequences of damaging boom-bust cycles, of which the late Dr. Eilish Cleary so eloquently warned in her 2013 report on shale gas development in New Brunswick.

We have only to review this past year of climate induced drought conditions and lost  domestic water wells to realize the importance of protecting our water resource. In addition, the Nashwaak Watershed Association has determined that of the 15 current and potential pressures on the watershed, the Sisson Mine is by far the most extreme threat to the future integrity of its health and well-being.

Premier Holt seems so far off-base in failing to understand the interplay of the poor economics of the Sisson Mine and the protection of our most precious water resource, it calls into question her ability to lead this province through the turmoil created by the clown-Led government to our south.

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