The economic benefits appear to be massive. Now the main question is whether the federal government will approve it this time.
Nearly a year after Ottawa rejected Taseko Mines Ltd.’s Prosperity project in central British Columbia, the company is highlighting a third-party economic study that shows the proposed mine would increase real gross domestic product in Canada by $11-billion over the next two decades, while creating an estimated 71,000 jobs.
The study, prepared by the Centre for Spatial Economics, also suggests that government revenue would rise by $9.8-billion over the life of the mine, and that the population of B.C. would grow by an estimated 5,400 people.
“It just shows you the kind of economic impact one mine can have. It’s unreal,” Taseko chief executive Russell Hallbauer said in an interview.
Prosperity, 125 kilometres southwest of Williams Lake, is already one of the most controversial mining projects in Canadian history, well before any shovel has been put into the ground.
The government of B.C. approved the proposed copper-gold mine, seeing it as a cornerstone in a new era of mine construction in the province. But then the federal government stepped in and rejected it last November on environmental grounds, citing Taseko’s plan to drain a 111-hectare body of water called Fish Lake.
That triggered a controversy over how the two governments could come to different conclusions when given the same information. There was even a probe over a potential leak of Ottawa’s decision, though that went nowhere.
Taseko had to go back to the drawing board. In June of this year, the Vancouver-based company submitted a new mine plan for Prosperity (now dubbed New Prosperity) that would save Fish Lake at a cost of about $300-million.
Luckily for Taseko, copper and gold prices improved enough that the company could afford to truck its waste rock further from the site (the original plan was to use the lake). Without the jump in metal prices, the US$1.1-billion project would not be viable.
With both the federal and provincial governments facing huge deficits, Mr. Hallbauer hopes this new economic study will convince them, as well as wary First Nations groups, that New Prosperity should be developed as quickly as possible. His plan is to begin construction in “at least” 2013.
“We think we made a huge accommodation for the First Nations with saving the lake. We think that if they got onside, they’d be a significant beneficiary of the value created by this mine,” he said.
New Prosperity would be among Canada’s largest copper-gold mines, with 5.3 billion pounds of copper and 13.3 million ounces of gold in measured and indicated resources.
It is expected to produce about 300,000 ounces of gold and 150 million pounds of copper a year in the first five years of production if it is approved.