7 Ways Mining in B.C. is mean and not green

It’s time to force B.C. to live up to the claim that it is a world leader in social and environmental responsibility in its mining sector.

With support from the Environmental Law Centre at the University of Victoria, a coalition of First Nations has called for a judicial inquiry into mining practices, calling out  the sector’s “profound state of dysfunction”. 

Since then, the BC government has adopted DRIPA, the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act, a binding requirement for the province to align its laws with the United Nations Declaration. There’s no doubt that the relationships between Indigenous Peoples and British Columbia’s mining sector are set to change. But fully implementing DRIPA could take years, and if it’s not enforceable under the legal system (which B.C. is arguing against Gitxaała over in court), it will never have any teeth to be implemented. 

Meanwhile, unsustainable, unjust, and unsafe mining continues apace until the new framework for respecting Indigenous consultation during mining claims is created in March 2025. Even then,  long-standing legislation and policy will still give mining priority over almost all other land uses in the province. 

While B.C. touts its mining policies as sustainable and just, on the land and water a different story is starkly evidenced. Here are 7 ways B.C.’s Mineral Tenure Act  is mean, and not green:

1. It sidelines Indigenous Peoples. First Nations are often the last to know about a mineral application on their land. B.C.’s Mineral Tenure Act is a Gold-Rush era piece of legislation that is shockingly out of step with the realities of  Indigenous rights and title. However, thanks to a legal challenge brought forward by Gitxaała and Ehattesaht Nations, in September 2023, the Supreme Court of B.C. ruled that the duty to consult is triggered before a mineral claim is staked. Although Gitxaała celebrates this victory for mining justice, they appealed a part of the decision where the Supreme Court of B.C. found that UNDRIP and DRIPA have no force under law in B.C.. While the Nations still await for the appeal hearing, they negotiated with the B.C. government in March 2024 to make sure no new mining claims can be staked on parts of Gitxaała territory, and none through all of Ehattesaht’s territory, before B.C. changes the mineral claims framework in 2025.
2. Mines are operating without consent. B.C’s 2018 Environmental Assessment Act requires that officials seek to achieve “consensus” with affected Nations rather than work toward consent. Under the EAA, the government must ‘consider’ a Nation’s lack of consent and must publish its reasoning for approving a project despite failing to obtain Indigenous consent. This bar is far too low, and nowhere near consent as defined by the Declaration on the RIghts of Indigenous Peoples, which DRIPA incorporated into law. B.C.’s environmental assessment laws should require Indigenous consent and meaningful public participation as a condition for approving mining projects.
3. The industry grades its own papers. The Mining Association of Canada’s “Toward Sustainable Mining” sets out voluntary standards for the mining sector.  The problem? TSM is owned and managed by the industry. An unenforceable, industry-controlled standard is woefully insufficient when it comes to protecting the rights of Indigenous communities and the environment.
4. Mining in B.C. has dangerously sloppy oversight. Mining tailings and dams litter the watersheds of B.C., holding back millions of litres of toxic waste.  The industry notoriously fails to carry out routine environmental monitoring. As a result, toxins are allowed to leach into nearby streams and rivers. 
5. Industry won’t clean up its mess. Abandoned mines continue to leak toxic runoff into waterways and the cost of clean-up, if it happens, is likely to be shouldered by B.C. taxpayers.  In 2018, B.C. had 1.2 billion on the books in unfunded liability for mine site clean-up.
6.  BC thinks ‘dilution’ is a solution. The B.C. Government permits mines to discharge mine wastewater directly into lakes and rivers with barely any treatment, counting on a dilution factor to lower pollution levels. In Tsilhqot’in territory, a permit allows mining companies to discharge 24 million litres of polluted water every day into the Fraser River, where salmon and sturgeon are in dramatic decline.
7. B.C. has some of the highest and riskiest tailings dams in the world. The 2014 breach of a copper- and gold-mine tailings pond at the Mount Polley site in the Cariboo region of B.C. released millions of cubic metres of water and slurry into a nearby lake; it was the worst mining disaster in Canada’s history. Despite failing to fully implement recommendations from the Mt. Polley inquiry, a tailings dam for Copper Mountain mine has been approved that will potentially be taller than Vancouver’s tallest skyscraper. Meanwhile,(for graphic only: Mining tailings and dams litter the watersheds of B.C., holding back millions of litres of toxic waste.)   in a 2021 audit, one in four tailings facilities failed to meet BC’s safety requirements. 

Indigenous Peoples are not here for it. From Tahltan Nation evicting Doubleview Gold from their territory to the ʔElhdaqox Dechen Ts’edilhtan “Sturgeon River Law” and Yinka Dene Surface Water Law, Nations are taking matters into their own hands in the absence of a rights-based regulatory framework. 

Thanks to Gitxaała’s win at the B.C. Supreme Court (2023),  the Province will no longer allow corporations to stake mining claims in Indigenous territory without consultation with Indigenous Peoples. Gitxaała Nation is now pushing the court to uphold Free, Prior and Informed consent, and quash the mineral claims on Banks Island.

If Gitxaała Nation wins on appeal, B.C.’s DRIPA will have the law behind it, making sure the Province doesn’t slouch back on its promises made in the Act. The case may also trigger a review of the Mineral Tenure Act to bring B.C.’s mineral tenure regime into compliance with UNDRIP, as required by DRIPA, and further clarity on the application of DRIPA to other resource extractive industries.Donate to support their legal challenge: raventrust.com/gitxaala