EDITORIAL PAGE — Environmentalists lay final claim to Windy

Windy Craggy is now dead. But let’s get it straight. It was a victim of politics, not its inherent environmental problems.

All the environmental difficulties related to mining the huge copper deposit, sitting in the midst of the pristine Tatshenshini watershed in northwestern British Columbia, were satisfactorily dealt with in the proposed development plans submitted to government.

The project should have been allowed to proceed through the regular approval process. From a purely technical viewpoint, it likely would have passed the test, with modifications here and there.

But politics got in the way. This was an orebody, after all, that had attracted the attention of U.S. President Bill Clinton, U.S. Vice-president Al Gore, a Kennedy-clan environmental lawyer out of New York, environmental groups on both sides of the U.S.-Canada border and a few too many in the British Columbia government cabinet.

Against such opposition, Windy Craggy never stood a chance. It didn’t help when the provincial government, in a separate environmental dust-up, granted loggers limited rights to work Clayoquot Sound on Vancouver Island. Environmentalists, taking this as a defeat, redoubled their efforts against Windy Craggy. And because of Clayoquot, the government could not afford to be seen “caving in,” as the environmentalists put it, to industry once again. So Windy Craggy got the axe. It will be “permanently protected” as a class A provincial park.

Now, the question of compensation arises. Royal Oak Mines bought into Geddes Resources, the owner of the deposit, knowing that if the proposed development were killed, Geddes would very likely be recompensed. It is the very least the Michael Harcourt government can do.

After Harcourt’s announcement, Royal Oak President Margaret Witte, interviewed on television, said the government’s own report put the value of Windy Craggy between $110 million and $650 million. To whatever sum Royal Oak and Geddes are entitled will also be added the value of another 20 Tatshenshini claimholders. British Columbia’s taxpayers will soon discover the true price of reserving a wee corner of the province for river rafters. (Never mind the jobs lost and the hundreds of millions in lost tax revenue.) But the larger question revolves around the ramifications this decision will have on investment in exploration and advanced-stage projects in the province.

To state the pathetically obvious, there is absolutely no doubt this decision sends a negative message to investors the world over.

The message, blunt and unequivocal, is: DON’T BOTHER INVESTING IN MINE EX-PLORATION IN BRITISH COLUMBIA.

Think about it. Why would anyone put down cash trying to beat the already-long odds of finding a minable deposit when the government, in true banana-republic fashion, can simply suspend the rules and kill a promising project?

Dumb. Dumb. Dumb.