East Kootenay-based conservation group Wildsight and environmental law firm Ecojustice have submitted a legal petition to the federal government in regards to the take over of Elk Valley coal mines to Swiss-based mining company Glencore. Glencore announced its US $6.9 billion acquisition of the coal mines from Teck Resources late last year.
The deal is still pending approval from the federal government, which under the Investment Canada Act, must assess investments by non-Canadians as to whether they are a net benefit to Canada’s economy.
Wildsight spokesperson Casey Brennan said that the petition legally obliges the government to answer questions regarding the sale.
Of particular concern to Wildsight and Ecojustice is the potential for huge costs of environmental remediation being left to the taxpayer.
“The financial risk to taxpayers will increase exponentially if ownership of these mines passes from Canadian owned Teck Resources to Glencore, a foreign entity that has publicly declared its intention to spin-off the mines within two years of the sale going through,” Brennan said in a press release regarding the petition. “We want to know how Ottawa is factoring that risk into its decision making, and what it’s doing to make sure polluters, not taxpayers, pay.”
Wildsight alleges that taxpayers could be on the hook to pay billions of dollars for cleanup of selenium contamination run off from the five Elk Valley mines due to insufficient reclamation securities held by the B.C. government.
Teck has disputed Wildsight’s estimation of total reclamation costs in the Elk Valley.
As explained by Wildsight, a reclamation security is a financial assurance, often referred to as a bond, that mining companies must provide to the province to cover environmental reclamation and remediation costs in case of insolvency or emergency. It is designed to ensure the financial burden associated with clean-up costs falls on industry rather than taxpayers.
The petition asks eight questions of the federal government, relating to the size of bonds, as well as to the possibility of Glencore rolling the mines into a separate asset. Such a move, the petition asserts, could insulate Teck or Glencore from future unsecured environmental and financial liabilities.
“Pursuant to Section 22 of the Auditor General Act, Commissioner DeMarco is legally obliged to pass our petition on to the federal government,” said Fraser Thomson, Ecojustice staff lawyer in the same release. “From receipt of the petition, the appropriate ministers must consider and respond to all eight questions posed by it within 120 days. This process will force the government to respond on the record for all to see.”
“Is the government carefully considering how Glencore’s takeover will impact Canadian taxpayers, species and landscapes? How is it factoring Glencore’s environmental track record into its decision? To what extent has it assessed Glencore’s human rights track record under international agreements such as UNDRIP? These are all questions that we hope to get answers to,” Thomson said.
