Taseko’s Prosperity mine saga is much more than one company’s head-on collision with B.C.’s new resource rock wall. It’s a cautionary tale for the province’s overall prosperity and how to maintain it.
If B.C. can’t find a long-term solution to its aboriginal versus resource extraction tug-of-war, casualties are going to continue to pile up on both sides of the tribal divide, and B.C. will be the loser.
This issue goes far beyond resources in the ground. Any that are of significant economic value in West Coast waters are also part of the equation. Last year’s confrontation between the Chemainus Indian Band and fishermen during an August geoduck harvest is but one example.
Business in Vancouver reporter Joel McKay’s recent four-part Chasing Prosperity series exploring all facets of Taseko’s failed attempt to secure federal approval for the multibillion-dollar copper-gold mine in the province’s economically depressed Williams Lake area (issues 1101-1104; November 30-December 21-27) illustrates the best and worst of B.C. mining endeavours.
The best: this province continues to be home to world-class miners and world-class precious metals deposits.
The worst: the increasingly frustrating hurdles now blocking the former from getting the latter to market to satisfy demand when it’s strongest so that the province and its standard of living might reap the benefits.
Helping erect and maintain those hurdles: complex multi-government approval processes and aforementioned tribal disconnect.
Native bands, in large part, argue that they’re not getting their fair share of any B.C. resource bonanza. Never have in the past, they say, so why would things change now?
Good question. Resource extractors have too often failed to involve native bands from the outset in development projects and shortchanged them in the wealth they’ve generated.
But here’s another question in search of a good answer: what needs to be done to ensure that bands are equipped to claim that fair share while the window of opportunity is wide open and get beyond viewing that window from a perspective anchored in a dark past?
Business management training tops the list. As Clint Davis, Canadian Council for Aboriginal Business CEO, pointed out in “Job 1 on native reserves: Build business management skills” (Public Offerings - issue 1092; September 28-October 4, Canadian native bands are woefully under-resourced in that area.
If they don’t address that issue, they’ll never control their economic destiny, and they’ll never be able to take advantage of the huge resource development opportunities hammering on their doors.
Equally critical to their success is kicking the welfare dependency habit Ottawa has burdened them with.
It’s well nigh impossible to juice up an entrepreneurial heartbeat while you’re on the dole.
Some B.C. bands are now leading the way in reclaiming their free-market roots, but many have been relying on dollars and decisions from Ottawa for so long they’ve forgotten what it’s like to wager their own resources on initiatives, so that they might reap the benefits of good business bets and learn from bad ones.
As Taseko’s vice-president of corporate affairs Brian Battison said when asked if his company had proposed an economic development agreement with First Nations: “Those opportunities are available for the willing, but the people need to be willing.”
They won’t be willing if they have to keep looking to Ottawa for all their economic answers.