Izok Lake
The Globe and Mail reports on the proposed Izok Corridor Project by Melbourne-based “MMG Ltd., a subsidiary of the Chinese state-owned China Minmetals” that would see the “development of (eight) mines, roads, ports and other facilities in the centre of calving grounds for the fragile Bathurst caribou herd” in Nunavut in the western Arctic. “Izok Lake would be drained, the water dammed and diverted to a nearby lake. Three smaller lakes at High Lake would also be drained. Grays Bay would be substantially filled in. …MMG plans a port there that could accommodate ships of up to 50,000 tonnes that would make 16 round trips a year – both east and west – through the Northwest Passage.”
Grays Bay
Earlier this month, the Nunavut Impact Review Board “recommended Northern Development Minister John Duncan call full public hearings on the project. Mr. Duncan and the three other ministries involved – Transport, Natural Resources and Fisheries and Oceans – have three choices. They can send the project back to MMG and ask for changes, they can choose to let the (Nunavut) board run hearings itself, or they can decide the project’s effects would be broad enough to require the involvement of other governments in hearings. …MMG plans to ask for permission to start preliminary work on site (in late-2014) before the regulatory process is over… The earliest the mines could be producing would be 2018.”
The article highlights, “More than 400 individuals, organizations, aboriginal groups and governments registered concerns about the project with the Nunavut Impact Review Board.” No date has been given as to when the Harper government will decide on this destructive mega-project.
The implications of the Canada-China Foreign Investment Promotion and Protection Act are not noted in this article.
The Globe and Mail report can be read at http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/industry-news/energy-and-resources/harpers-cabinet-mulls-massive-chinese-resource-project-in-arctic/article6752413/.
