This is the email I sent today to Greg Kyllo Greg currently serves as the Official Opposition Critic for Environment and Parks and was appointed by the Legislature to the Select Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs.
Dear Mr.Kyllo, I am writing to you about the Morrison mine project from Pacific Booker (PB).
My concern is that the Lake Babine people (LBN) likely do not realize the enormity of the financial benefit that they would receive.
LBN needs to know what is in it for them, and there has been so much misinformation, that I believe they are unaware of the real numbers.
The Environmental assessment Office (EAO) prepared a presentation with 15 slides in which they estimated provincial revenues would be $64.5 million.
If LBN was to get an approx. 1/3 share of the provincial mineral tax revenue, then they would expect approx. $21.5 million over the life of the mine according to the EAO.
How the EAO came up with these numbers is a mystery.
Pacific Booker was very conservative when predicting mineral tax revenue and still showed $207 million, which would have meant approx $69 million for LBN at a 1/3 share.
As an example of just how conservative PB was, they used a gold price of $658 in their calculations, when gold was in fact selling for more than $1600 an ounce at the time.
The link to the EAO slide presentation can be found at
The 15 EAO slides start on page 83, with the Financial Benefits slide on page 87.
Using the "Working Model" from PB, which has all the anticipated expenses and revenues, it shows $6.6 Billion in profit using today's copper ($4.50), gold ($1890) and silver ($28) prices.
Keeping in mind that this working model is approx. 10 years old, and that the costs/expenses will need to be updated, it will still provide ballpark net income figures.
That said, a 13% mineral tax on $6.6 billion results in $858 million in provincial tax revenue.
LBN's 1/3 share of $858 million is $285 million.
$21 million vs $285 million is quite the discrepancy!
I would have to guess that provincial negotiators used the EAO number of approx. $21.5 million, whereas now it would be $285 million.
There are approx 2700 LBN people and so $285 million is more than $100,000 for every man, woman and child or over $400,000 for a family of 4.
Trying to predict mineral prices is not an exact science.
That said, most experts are predicting strong copper prices because of the electrification process that will occur globally in the coming decades.
PB has 1.4 billion pounds of copper and so for every $1 US increase in price, it results in an extra $1.68 billion in CDN revenue.
LBN stands to gain approx. $70 million for every $1 increase in the price of copper. ($1.68 x 13% mineral tax x 1/3 LBN share)
In addition, at today's copper price of $4.50/pound, I understand that low grade ore would also be used and could result in another 800 million pounds of copper.
It is very reasonable to think that LBN could receive $500 million with rising copper prices and an extra 800 million pounds of copper.
To keep these numbers in perspective, LBN recently (April 16th) referred to receiving $30 million from the Foundation Agreement as "a once in a lifetime opportunity to change our economic future"
If $30 million is referred to as a "once in a lifetime opportunity" then what would the LBN's mineral tax share of the Morrison mine be referred to?
Please share these numbers with the ministers, so that hopefully, they can then in turn be shared with LBN.
I truly believe that LBN do not realize how the mineral tax revenue will improve many aspects of their quality of life and they deserve to know.
Yours truly,
Dr. Kim Vanderlinden
PS It should also be kept in mind that:
1- More than 80% or 2200+ of LBN's 2700 citizens live in Woyenne / Burns Lake, which is approx. a 5 hour drive to the mine
Thus the Morrison mine will have a minor impact on the majority of LBN's people, as they live so far away
2- Only 1.6% or 18514 of Lake Babine's 1,126,272 sockeye are from Morrison lake and stream and so the mine will have a minimal impact, if any, on the sockeye.