We Need To Talk About Mining In The Maritimes
David Campbell is a Moncton-based economic development consultant and co-host of the Huddle podcast, Insights. The following piece was originally published on his blog, It’s the Economy, Stupid!, on Substack.
Not that long ago, mining was an important economic engine in the Maritimes – well, mostly New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. Even before natural gas started to flow from Nova Scotia, the real GDP contribution from mining was around 3.5-4 percent of regional GDP (including PEI), not including its indirect and induced impacts.
The federal government recently released its long-awaited mineral development strategy last week. The Canadian Critical Minerals Strategy makes a strong case for mining in Canada to help address net zero 2050 and support the digital economy. There is a pile of new money and a commitment to reduce the development cycle of mining projects.
The document has a section on success stories that lists a couple dozen recent mining and mining-related projects in Canada.
None were in New Brunswick. None were in Nova Scotia.
Don Mills and I are going to put a push on this topic in the new year on the Insights podcast.
We need to figure out where our region can play a part in supplying critical minerals. We have considerable deposits around the region: potash, zinc, tungsten, uranium, manganese, gold (not to mention natural gas). We are supposed to have some rare earth deposits, too.
We have heard grumbling that provincial governments aren’t particularly interested in mining because there’s too much NIMBYism for the effort. But I think this is exactly why we must have a public conversation.
Certainly, mining projects can’t proceed without a full consultation with First Nations and engagement related to benefits and oversight. Certainly, people in close-by communities need to be consulted. But just saying “no” because mining is bothersome and carries some risk is not a good enough argument.
I was in a session in Nova Scotia recently and the facilitator said the provincial government wants to focus on high-value, high-productivity sectors. Well, you don’t get much higher productivity than mining. The labour productivity in most mining sectors is near the top for all sectors in the economy and average wages tend to be near the top, too.
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