EDITORIAL PAGE (December 09, 1991)

When it comes to developing our mineral wealth, those entrusted with the responsibility of making decisions for the public good sometimes have to weigh between economic development and wilderness preservation.

In any particular case the question must be: How is the public better served?

In the case of British Columbia’s Windy Craggy mineral deposit in the northwest corner of the province, weighing the pros and cons in that equation makes the decision increasingly obvious. Windy Craggy is just too important to stop.

On one side there are arguments for preventing development of a mine that would cover a small area within a vast wilderness. Prevention of the project would be for the sake of keeping 12% of the province’s land mass as untouched wilderness for the benefit of future generations.

On the other side are arguments to develop a mineral deposit that is of such economic size that its benefits to the population of the entire province — of the entire country — are impossible to ignore. With nine billion pounds of contained copper and 400 million pounds of cobalt, the deposit has a gross value in the magnitude of $15 billion.

There’s no denying that development of this resource should be done in an environmentally responsible way, but there is also no denying that development of this resource will help the province and the country support the services and social programs that all Canadians enjoy.

The reason why we have the luxury of even considering putting this project on hold for the sake of maintaining a recreation area is because we have exploited our resources to pay for our high standard of living. The days of cheap mining are over if we truly want to protect our wilderness areas, but the need for developing our mineral resources has never been stronger if we want to protect our way of life.

Make no mistake. If this project is stopped, the losers will be the individual taxpayers who will have to carry an increasingly large burden of government spending on their backs.