A massive open-pit gold mine is set to operate in the “critical habitat” of the Val-d’Or caribou herd, the most endangered in all of Quebec. Even though the Trudeau government says it wants to protect this habitat through its emergency decree, it plans to exclude the area coveted by the mine, it has learned The Duty.
Ontario-based Probe Gold plans to develop the Novador mining project in Abitibi-Témiscamingue. The mining company hopes to “meet global market demand for this metal,” described in the project description as “a safe haven that plays a key role in the stability of financial markets, economic relations between states, and their political stability.”
To exploit its deposit for a dozen years, it is planned to install five open pits, as well as an ore processing plant, access roads, waste rock and overburden piles, and a tailings pond. Probe Gold estimates that it will produce up to 19,000 tonnes of raw ore each day and will have to store more than 500 million tonnes of tailings. The exploitation of the gold mine, at a rate of 1.3 g per tonne of raw ore, will require, among other things, blasting operations.
The project is currently in the environmental assessment stage under the aegis of federal and Quebec regulations. In fact, the documents filed by the company note that mining will involve “a lot of activities on the natural environment,” which may include “disruption or destruction of certain components of the biophysical environment, such as the diversion of watercourses or the loss of wetlands.”
In the case of Novador, it is notably a question of diverting the course of two rivers, but also of potentially encroaching on wetlands, since there are nearly 38 km² of these natural environments on the site. Not to mention “the presence of two eskers”.
Several plant and animal species, some of which are threatened, are also present in this territory. The entire industrial complex will also be located in the heart of the “critical habitat” of the Val-d’Or caribou population, according to the findings of Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC).
In a written response to questions from the DutyProbe Gold recognizes that its future open-pit mine is located in this habitat considered by scientists to be essential to the survival and recovery of the Val-d’Or caribou. During the consultations conducted by the mining company in the region, the case of the threatened deer was listed among the “key issues of the project.”
The project description presented by the Ontario company as part of its environmental assessment by Quebec also specifies that the “recovery plan” for the forest caribou produced by government experts aims to “enable the species to return to a satisfactory state throughout its distribution area in order to remove it from the list of species designated as threatened or vulnerable.”
The situation of the Val-d’Or caribou population is critical, to the point where, after considering sending the herd to the Saint-Félicien zoo, the government decided in March 2020 to capture them and place them in captivity to prevent their extinction. There are now barely nine animals and a project to introduce captured caribou into a northern population has been mentioned by Quebec.
Excluded from the decree
In the “working document” of the draft federal decree for the protection of caribou in Val-d’Or, Charlevoix and Pipmuacan, ECCC specifies that “mining” is one of the human activities that explain the marked decline of caribou in Quebec.
However, there is no question of slowing down Probe Gold’s ambitions. “Given that the Novador gold mining project is currently undergoing a federal impact assessment process, it would, under the proposed exclusions, be excluded from the area covered by the emergency order and would not be affected,” explains the Impact Assessment Agency of Canada (IAAC) in a written response to questions from the Duty.
And even if the consequences for the Val-d’Or caribou were to be “significant”, at the end of the environmental assessment, the minister responsible for ECCC, Steven Guilbeault, could give the green light “if the public interest justifies these effects”. The AEIC nevertheless asked the mining company to “characterize the caribou’s essential habitat” and to quantify the “habitat losses” that could be attributable to this industrial project.
The directive sent by the Quebec Ministry of the Environment for the impact study, which will likely lead to a review by the Bureau d’audiences publiques sur l’environnement, does not mention caribou. However, it does indicate that “special attention” must be paid to endangered species.
Is a mining project involving five open pits and waste rock piles possible in the critical habitat of this caribou population? The Quebec ministry has led The Duty to federal authorities, while emphasizing that Quebec “will determine whether the project is environmentally acceptable” at the end of the provincial assessment.
Rodrigue Turgeon, spokesperson for the Coalition Québec meilleure mine, deplores the apparent precedence of the mining industry over the protection of the deer on the verge of extinction, especially since the Novador project will likely not be the last to encroach on the last habitats conducive to its survival. The organization has in fact produced a map that shows that the majority of the territory covered by the federal decree in the Val-d’Or region is occupied by mining exploration permits.
Unless these permits are withdrawn, they open the door to the establishment of other mines, Mr. Turgeon emphasizes. “If the federal decree were to be adopted as proposed, the Val-d’Or caribou population will see its essential habitat continue to be disturbed to levels higher than the desired conservation objectives due to the mining activities that could continue,” writes the organization in its comments filed as part of the consultations on the decree.
Federal Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault last year approved a major open-pit mining project in a region of northern Quebec considered “critical habitat” for woodland caribou — specifically for a declining population. The project will encroach on an area where females give birth to their calves.