SKIPPER'S BLOG: Not One Spoonful...

For many years now people in Newfoundland and Labrador have been having their leg vigorously pulled by politicians when it comes to the shipping out of raw natural resources.

Other than beating up on Ottawa to gain political favour with the masses, a close second is the process of pounding on companies who dare to suggest they will take away our resources with little benefit to the locals.

Maximizing the benefits has been a catchphrase for every government in the past 30 years, but I’m wondering if that idea is starting to change.

We recently saw the province deal with Ocean Choice International (OCI) on a plan that will see groundfish shipped outside the province unprocessed in return for some work at the company’s plant in Fortune, NL.

Many believe this will be the tip of an iceberg that will see many companies start to come forward and ask for exemptions to the province’s minimum processing requirements, which — good, bad or indifferent — is quite a departure from the current situation.

And then there’s mining.

I remember breaking a story once upon a time about a company called New Millennium who were planning to mine an old ore deposit in north western Labrador and ship that raw ore out to a pellet plant in Sept Iles, Quebec.

The general public went mad. And I distinctly recall a very agitated and snarky then-Natural Resources Minister Ed Byrne tearing me a new one over the whole idea. He suggested such a concept would never be considered and to even suggest it was the heights of foolishness.

And today, just a few years later, I get this in my email:

Joyce Lake Direct Shipping Iron Ore Project                            (Reg. 1674)                 

Proponent: Labec Century Iron Ore

Labec Century Iron Ore is proposing to develop an iron mine in western Labrador approximately 20 kilometres northeast of the Town of Schefferville, Quebec. The proposed project is situated entirely within Labrador and will produce up to four million metric tonnes of product per year. The first three years of operation would focus on production of direct shipping ore (DSO) which has a high iron content, with stockpiling of lower grade ore that would be beneficiated to bring it up to the desired commercial grade. The ore will be transported to the existing railway owned by Tshiuetin Rail Transportation Inc. for transportation to the Port of Sept-Iles. Components of the mine and mine infrastructure include: an open pit, waste rock disposal, tailings management, processing and support infrastructure, access and haulage roads and a rail loop. The project is scheduled to start construction in 2014 and operations are projected to be completed by 2022 followed by the decommissioning and rehabilitation phases.

So the question remains: Are we moving away from the idea of not allowing natural resources to be shipped out of the province unprocessed?

What do you think?