LETTERS TO THE EDITOR — Eskay benefits belong at home

Canadian mining companies have been bemoaning the declining state of the industry in their country for the past few years. As a 20-plus-year employee of the industry, I have at times joined with them in criticizing the various governments (provincial and federal) for not providing an atmosphere conducive to the industry’s well-being.

Many companies have spoken with their money by taking it elsewhere, and that is fair enough.

Now we have the announcement (T.N.M., Feb. 28/94) by Prime Resources Group that it plans to ship raw ore from the Eskay Creek project in northwestern British Columbia directly to foreign smelters for treatment. This move will result in the loss of about 120 jobs that were to be created from a planned processing plant in Houston, B.C.

Granted, it is nice to see a mining project actually develop to the operation stage, but not by depleting our resources with little benefit to the local economy. This sort of action can be likened to the shipping of raw logs by the forestry industry.

It is unfortunate when one ends up asking the provincial government to take a course of action he has previously decried, namely, to interfere with the normal progression of mine approval. Eskay Creek should proceed only when the benefits of value-added processing will accrue to the local economy. Douglas Watt

Houston, B.C.