Call our bluff! Give us our permits!

Most people support environmental protection and enhancement programs, but they also want jobs and financial security.

Echo Bay Mines is one of the job makers in Canada and the U.S. We’re not big, but we add jobs — directly and indirectly.

Ten years ago, we had no employees in the U.S. and fewer than 200 in Canada. Today, we provide close to 1,800 jobs in both countries combined. We work hard to live in complete compliance with environmental laws and regulations. We’re human and we’ve had accidents, but each has been quickly remedied without any lasting adverse impact on the environment. Government sets the environmental laws and regulations, and companies such as Echo Bay obey them. It’s no different from having to comply with rules regarding taxes or safety.

We’re trying to get permits to expand or extend our operations in Nevada and Washington and open two mines in Alaska — all of which will provide 700 new jobs if our permit applications are granted.

For each of those 700 new primary jobs, there will also be more than one support job created among a variety of suppliers and other companies. Our frustration stems from the fact that the process of getting permits has slowed down to a crawl. The opposition comes from environmentally concerned citizens with whom we work to improve projects, and also from people who just don’t want mining to be carried out anywhere near them — no matter what. If we and the other mining companies were to cease operations in Canada and the U.S., would that benefit either country — or the environment? We would still be consuming metals for automobiles, refrigerators, computers, houses, jewelry and dental work — but the metals would come from other countries. That would mean fewer jobs for us at home and a worsened balance of trade.

And how could it make for a better environment? Environmental issues are Planet Earth issues. You can only believe that moving mining to other countries is good for the environment if you believe that other countries will do a more effective job of enforcing environmental protection than the U.S. and Canada. Hogwash!

So the permitting process drags on, slowing down each year.

Are the mining companies reading the tea leaves and looking abroad for opportunities? Of course they are. They must, if they want to stay in business. We’re not alone.

But don’t confuse us with employers who are running away to get cheaper labor. We’re trying to work right here in North America and provide jobs for North Americans.

Call our bluff! Give us our permits, and if we don’t start construction on our projects, lower the boom on us.

What does it mean if we undertake a major operation in a developing country instead of in North America? First of all, most of our jobs are blue-collar jobs. In Nevada, at our Round Mountain mine, a husband-and-wife team earns more than $40,000 a year per spouse, plus benefits.

How does this sound to prospective workers overseas? They’ll have the jobs that North Americans would have had if we had put the money into mines here. We’ll use some North Americans in technical, better-paid jobs at first, but in a decade you’ll see few of them — in a generation, none. If government regulators and anti-development groups won’t let us develop our North American properties, Echo Bay won’t die. We’ll do what my grandfather did in Kansas a hundred years ago. We’ll move the wagons elsewhere, where we’re welcome.

— Robert Calman is the chairman of Echo Bay Mines. The article is extracted from a speech he delivered in Alaska last year.