Mining Act | The Quebec subsoil must be democratized

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At the end of 2023, the Minister of Natural Resources and Forests, Maïté Blanchette Vézina, announced that she wanted to open the Mining Act⁠1 to respond to the concerns raised during its consultation in the spring of the same year. Here are some ideas for consideration with a view to submitting it.




Minerals of the energy transition

Most of the operating mines are located in Nord-du-Québec, Abitibi-Témiscamingue and on the Côte-Nord, where iron, gold, silver and nickel are mainly extracted. For the energy transition, other minerals are coveted, including lithium, graphite, cobalt, copper and rare earths. Prospecting is important everywhere, but the Outaouais, the Laurentians, Lanaudière and Mauricie find themselves in conflict of use.

Democratic deficit

It is free access to the subsoil, a legacy of British law and preserved to this day⁠2which seems to be problematic.

Separating the democracy of the underground from that of the surface was a legal trick of access to the resource which becomes difficult to justify in the face of so many activities on the surface. A privilege that no other industry has.

In 2016, Quebec gave the MRCs the power to delimit territories incompatible with mining activity (TIAM), but the administrative approach does not favor concerted planning with the community.

PHOTO ALAIN ROBERGE, LA PRESSE ARCHIVES

The Canadian Malartic open-pit gold mine, in Abitibi-Témiscamingue

Competition of uses

The coveted subsoil includes surface uses that are sometimes just as critical and strategic as so-called energy transition mines: agriculture, conservation, drinking water supply, recreational tourism, maple syrup production, non-timber products, or even new residential areas. A mine, even after its closure, remains a significant ecological stress with several risks to manage for decades and which can extinguish other important uses for the future.

PHOTO HUGO-SÉBASTIEN AUBERT, LA PRESSE ARCHIVES

Aerial view of the old mining shaft of the Jeffrey asbestos mine, in Val-des-Sources (Asbestos)

Without reform, little harmony

The minister has a lot to do to restore confidence through better arbitration, starting by reconsidering her subsidizing posture towards the mining industry. Here are five strategic places to improve the mining framework:

Free access for all

Open access deserves to be questioned and discussed openly. The temptation to reduce citizens’ access to claims will certainly fuel the conflict, unless they are given new powers.

A prior and decentralized democracy

Quebec should share the decision-making power to allocate claims with the First Nations and the MRCs. To be strategic with our territory, we need a mechanism for reconciling territorial uses before initiating mining use.

Municipal democracy and social acceptability

In the current system, the participatory democracy surrounding a mining project is assumed by the promoter, favoring his option. For greater neutrality and inclusion, democracy should be municipal and social acceptability should be evaluated.

A budget to better decide and manage

The mining royalty is not shared with the communities concerned. To overcome this problem, financial agreements have emerged between a mine and communities which hijack democracy through a certain bargaining over social acceptability.. A budgetary instrument is essential to know and share all the public costs of integrating a mine.

A framework and remedies for local residents

Mining in populated areas requires a minimum of supervision. To reduce the anxiety of cohabitation and potential loss of family assets, it is important to have a predictable eligibility and compensation framework.

Without global analysis, little harmony

More broadly, we must ask ourselves several questions: how many mines? How many dams? What sobriety? What recycling? What territorial sacrifices? To answer this, we need these general states⁠3 on energy or a strategic environmental assessment⁠4.

1. Read the article from Quebec Journal “Race for strategic minerals: Minister Blanchette Vézina wants to reopen the Mining Act for the development of the battery sector »

2. Consult the academic article “The inheritance of the principle of free mining in Quebec and Canada »

3. Read the editorial “We need general statements on energy”

4. Consult the government website defining strategic environmental assessment

What do you think ? Participate in the dialogue


reference: www.lapresse.ca

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