Pacific Booker Minerals and their quest to develop Morrison Mine near Smithers

In 2002, Pacific Booker Minerals began the formal environmental assessment process required to obtain ministerial certification for Morrison Mine, their proposed copper and gold mine near Smithers, BC. A decade later, after $10 million worth of consultations, meetings, and assessments, the company decided to proceed to the next stage of the certification process in which the Environmental Assessment Office (EAO) submits a formal environmental assessment report to the relevant ministers via the executive director. At the time of submission, all indications were that the mine would receive approval. EAO assessment reports had given the project a clean assessment and the company had proposed to undertake measures unprecedented in the copper mining industry to address the project’s environmental risks. Despite the positive environmental assessment, the Executive Director of the EAO chose to recommend that the project be rejected, advice which was followed by Environment Minister Terry Lake. The decision to reject proposed project was ostensibly made due to ongoing concerns about the effects of the project on local salmon populations and water quality in Morrison lake, among other things.

Yet the decision to reject the project on environmental grounds should raise immediate questions about why this project was nixed and not others, given the BC Liberal government’s environmental record in the mining sector. As highlighted in my question posed to the Minister of Energy, Mines, and Petroleum Resources in the House back in March, this is the same government that went to Ottawa in 2014 to lobby the federal government to approve the Prosperity mine, a project that had received two negative assessments by federal review panels. Moreover, the BC Liberals presided over a compliance and enforcement regime that the auditor general described as “inadequate to protect the province from significant environmental risk” and unfunded taxpayer liabilities in the mining industry were estimated at $1.4 billion as of 2017.

The decision to reject the project had serious repercussions for Pacific Booker. Their share price plummeted from $14.95 to $4.95 in one day and many investors lost their life savings. What’s more is that the Ministry failed to inform Pacific Booker of its intention to issue an adverse recommendation and did not provide the company with an opportunity to respond to it, conduct which deviated from the standards outlined in their own user guide.

Rather than face the prospect of beginning the assessment again Pacific Booker decided to enter into litigation with the government over its decision to reject the project.  Among other things, the case was fought over whether the Ministry had violated standards of procedural fairness by denying the company the chance to respond to the Executive Director’s recommendation. During the court proceedings, Justice Affleck would describe the environmental assessment process as a “sham” and accuse the province of repeatedly “moving the goalposts” during the assessment process. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the Supreme Court would rule in favour of Pacific Booker, writing that the firm “ought to have been entitled to know at least the essence of the adverse recommendations and ought to have been entitled to provide a written response”.

The ruling from the Supreme Court quashed the decision to reject the mine and ordered the project to be reconsidered by the government. Yet once again, the government elected not to approve the mine and ordered that the project undergo further assessment with the requirement that additional information be collected. Despite repeated exchanges with the environmental assessment office in which Pacific Booker attempted to determine what exactly this additional information is, the firm has been unable to obtain a clear answer from government officials, placing the project in a state of limbo. As of early 2020, the company was still in the process of working through the Supplemental Application Information Requirements with the EAO, in accordance with the order issued by the Ministers.

Based on the previous government’s environmental record in the mining sector (raised earlier), there has been speculation that the decision to reject the mine had little to do with environmental concerns and everything to do with political calculation. What could these political concerns have been? It is difficult to determine one single political factor that led to the decision around the Morrison mine but several interrelated developments which are explored in more detail below provide insight into the political circumstances surrounding the project.

Two ‘Final’ Environmental Assessment Reports

In 2013, before the court proceedings began, a whistleblower provided Pacific Booker with a copy of an assessment report on the Morrison mine dated August 21^st. The report contained notable differences from its final version that was ostensibly used to inform the government’s final decision and released publicly. Subsequent emails obtained by the company through a Freedom of Information (FOI) request have revealed that the Minister had requested changes to the original document which should raise questions about the political neutrality of the decision to reject the mine.  On July 16^th 2014, the project assessment director Chris Hamilton wrote to Sarah Bevan: “Hmm, I recall the first PBM knew about the no was a phone call on Oct 1, a Monday. Could you be thinking about the two versions of the recommendations? One was dated Aug 21, the date of the referral and then Minister Lake had asked for changes to that doc, so the second was dated Sep 20. Could that be it?”

To date, the Ministry has denied any allegations of political interference in the environmental assessment process. In his affidavit in Pacific Booker v British Columbia, David Sturko claimed that: “The clarifications requested by Minister Lake were (a) correction of a factual error relating to the project’s anticipated contribution to Provincial Gross Domestic product, and (b) more specificity regarding the nature and basis of the additional factors I cited in my recommendations at the end of the document”.

The Relentless Pursuit of LNG

For some time, the Lake Babine Nation has been opposed to the Morrison mine. Members of the community have expressed significant concerns about the effects of the project on local salmon populations which are important to the nation for cultural, historical, and economic reasons. When the decision was made to the reject the project, a secondary justification that the director of the EAO provided in his report was the “moderate to strong” strength of the Lake Babine Nation’s claim to aboriginal title in the area. Based on the strong opposition of the nation to the project, it is possible they would have pressed an aboriginal title claim in court to delay or block the project from proceeding.

At the time the project was rejected this appeared to be the only consideration that the province had given to First Nations issues. However, subsequent developments have made political conflict involving the Lake Babine Nation increasingly salient to the delayed progress on the project. In 2016, the Lake Babine Nation cautioned the province that their cooperation on major LNG projects, including the Prince Rupert Gas Transmission line, could be contingent upon the government not overturning its decision on the Morrison mine. Referencing the pipeline, Chief Wilf Adam was quoted in Business in Vancouver as saying: “If they overturn or change their decision in favour of PBM to start this mine, then all gloves are off – and any agreement we made with the province,”.

Raising the issues that have emerged around the Lake Babine Nation is in no way meant to diminish the obligation that the government has to undertake meaningful consultation with indigenous communities before projects can proceed. Resource development needs to be based on equal partnership between all parties with interests at stake in proposed projects. Rather, highlighting the political conflict involving the Lake Babine Nation is meant to bring attention to the fact that decisions involving the Morrison mine may have been influenced by political calculation that had little to do with the proposed project itself.

Project Suspension

Just before the Ministry was ready to release the order requesting further assessment, the Morrison mine was placed under suspension after the Mount Polley Mine disaster, pending the outcome of a provincial review. At the time, the Pacific Booker was the only project that was placed under suspension while the government was investigating the Mount Polley incident. To date, no explanations have been given for why the Morrison mine was suspended and not others. The delay would last for approximately one full year before the order was released.

Pipeline Politics

At the time the project was rejected, the BC Liberals were embroiled in a dispute with Alberta over the construction of the Enbridge pipeline where the most contentious issue in negotiations was revenue sharing. The Liberals took the position that BC would need to receive a higher share of the royalties for the amount of environmental risk the province would absorb in order for the pipeline to proceed. However, comments from some observers had implied that taking this stance placed BC in a weak negotiating position due to the BC Liberal government’s poor environmental record. Further compounding the government’s problems was a looming election in which the NDP had attempted to make the Enbridge pipeline an election issue. Then BC NDP leader Adrian Dix had been heavily critical of the government’s environmental record and had accused the BC Liberals of selling out BC’s interests to the federal government and to Alberta.

Towards a Resolution?

While there is no smoking gun which serves evidence that the province had politicized the environmental assessment process, the suspicious circumstantial evidence that suggests otherwise does little to inspire confidence from British Columbians in their government and has damaged the province’s reputation as a good place to do business. Furthermore, the decision to reject the project has had significant ramifications for Pacific Booker and its investors. Small investors in the project have lost their life savings and have been forced to continue to work well into their retirement years.  Based on these factors along, this government has a responsibility to ensure that this project is given a fair hearing in what is now effectively its third environmental assessment.