Yesterday saw the Terrace & District Chamber of Commerce partner up with the Mining Association of BC to put on an event called the Terrace Chamber Mining Luncheon.
Various local businesses and community leaders were invited to hear from several speakers about future mining opportunities in the Northwest BC Sector.
One of the speakers was Tim McEwan, the Mining Association of BC’s Senior Vice President of Corporate Affairs, and he went into more detail on what was set to be discussed at the event;
“There’s a few of us talking about mining as a catalytic opportunity in the Province of British Columbia. There’s obviously a lot going on here in the Northwest for the mining industry but province wide, there’s 31 potential mines in the offing and they represent a nearly $1 Trillion opportunity over the mine’s lifespan, which would average 20 years for the projects that are afoot. There’s mines that have been recently permitted like Newmont’s Red Chris, Skeena Resource’s Eskay Creek, about 7 or 8 have been permitted in the last year and a half. Most of them are mine extensions but there are a couple new ones as well.”
This event was a part of the ongoing BC Chamber Mining Roadshow and the other speakers included R. Brent Murphy, Seabridge Gold’s Senior Vice President of Environmental Affairs and Michael Tilson, the Nisg̱a’a Growth Corporation’s COO.
McEwan also went onto mention what other things the mining industry in BC is needing to see while he was at the event;
“We need to see accelerated permitting, we want to make sure that First Nations have the governance, administrative and technical capacity they need in order to engage on an equitable footing and regulatory process. Skills training is a big issue moving forward, there’s going to be a need for about 35,000 new workers over the next decade and an incremental 6 to 12,000 under a modest mine development scenario. Infrastructure’s a big deal for the industry, we’re very pleased to see the sod turning on the North Coast Transmission Line. And alongside that, we need to see senior governments continue to focus on making sure that they Debottleneck railroad and port infrastructure to ensure there is fluid supply chains moving forward.”