Warren Mirko is Executive Director of Public Land Use Society (PLUS)
After repeatedly telling British Columbians it would not give First Nations a veto over land use development, the B.C. government has, without a public mandate, outsourced its authority and done just that.
In the province’s first exclusive decision-making agreement with a First Nation, Premier David Eby’s government conferred a veto to the Tahltan Central Government over development of an open pit gold and silver mine in its claimed territory. The project is one of several multi-billion resource development projects located in the Tahltan’s vast claimed, but legally unproven, territory in the mineral-rich northwest.
“If the Eby government can quietly give one Indigenous body this level of control over such a large portion of Crown land, there is nothing preventing it from doing the same elsewhere.”
—Warren Mirko
The Eskay Creek gold and silver mine is estimated to produce 3.6 million tonnes of ore or 320,000 oz. gold-equivalent annually over 12 years of operation, contributing more than $14 billion to B.C.’s Gross Domestic Product and $3.6 billion in tax revenue for the provincial and federal governments.
In a 2022 Declaration Act Consent Decision-Making Agreement between the BC NDP government and the Tahltan Central Government for Eskay Creek Project, the province has given the Indigenous nation the power to kill development of the Skeena Resources (also known as Skeena Gold + Silver) mine while insisting no veto has been handed out.
Under the agreement, the Tahltan are defined as an Indigenous governing body within the meaning of subsection 7(1)(b) of the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act (DRIPA) which stipulates joint statutory decision-making with the provincial Crown, and that consent of the Tahltan Nation is required before a decision can be made.
Since then, a confidential impact benefit agreement was negotiated between the Tahltan and Skeena Resources. And now, just before Tahltan community members vote on whether to accept this agreement, which will determine the mine’s future, eligible Tahltan voters are reportedly receiving $10,000 each as part of an upfront $40 million payment to the nation’s government.
Read the full article at Northern Beat: Eby government gives Tahltan Nation veto over gold mine development.