Editor’s Note: GOVERNMENT’S ROLE

Then in the 1960s, the relationship chilled, in Ontario at least. The hearings of the royal commission into the affairs of Windfall Oils and Mines in the mid-1960s poisoned the atmosphere for explorationists. And again in the 1960s, I’m certain that government, at least in the eyes of the then Denison chief Stephen Roman, was the antithesis of enlightened. The national government under Lester Pearson had scuttled a sale of Denison uranium to France because of Pearson’s insistence that France employ the uranium for strictly peaceful purposes. In the early 1970s, British Columbia’s mining fraternity was shocked when voters elected a New Democratic Party government with a mandate to heavily tax the industry. Lately, relations have warmed both in Ottawa and the provinces. Government intervention paved the way for the re-opening of Yukon’s Faro mine. And the federal government is especially esteemed because of the success of the tax writeoff known as flow-through funding for exploration projects.

As the 1990s dawn, major mining issues have to be decided. The role of government looms large in this. How will each province define “sustainable development”? What of the setting aside of wilderness areas for parkland and for Indian land claims? What new thorny issues have yet to develop over the environment? What new metals might yet be added to the banned list? In this our last issue of the 1980s, Cominco Ltd. President and Chief Executive Officer Robert Hallbuaer makes the point that government has the power to make or break mining. Frightening thought isn’t it? But he also notes that ordinary people vote governments into office and send them packing when the nation’s or province’s affairs are perceived to have been mismanaged.

Meanwhile, if you read the story about the mineral wealth that waits only on infrastructure in northwestern British Columbia, you’ll find that government should not abandon its earliest role as road-builder.

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