Yukon Needs More Mining To Thrive

I’m a citizen of Whitehorse, Yukon who has lived and worked in the North since the late 1970s.

Yes, we can be described as a colony but colonies are usually acquired for strategic purpose — which applies in this case (we do wave the flag) — or for economic reasons which does not apply. I’ll focus on the economic aspect of our colony and why we are doomed to stagnate as wards of southern taxpayers.

We northerners are “welfare recipients” on a grand scale. I’ll use the Yukon as an example: We received $682 million in federal transfer payments last year for some 30,000 people and this does not include money spent by Indian and Northern Affairs, other federal departments or payments to First Nations ($54 million in 2009).

Coupled with the above and starting decades ago, mining, smelting, etc… was decreed to be a sunset industry and undesirable in the North. Witness Trudeau’s canoe trips and such in the 1970s, the rise of First Nations sovereignty and antidevelopment groups in conjunction with environmental awareness. Coupled with economic factors (low metal prices), high development costs, lack of public and private support, mineral exploitation and development in the North was basically deemed undesirable. This is just the opposite of the path taken by Finland and Sweden.

Today mineral explorers and those advocating industrial development generally find themselves unwelcome in the North. Between the preservationists and First Nations exerting control over their traditional territories, much of the North, including strategic areas controlling access and areas of higher mineral potential, is off limits to development.

A recent Yukon example is the one-year subsurface land-use withdrawal in the Peel River watershed, an area almost the size of New Brunswick ( www.emr.gov.yk.ca).

Here in the Yukon, we are undergoing land use planning as per land-claims settlements. So far, northern Yukon is done (lots of parks) and the Peel is being worked on with the attendant subsurface land use withdrawal (business as usual for everybody else).

In spite of the mini-boom we have with exploration in the White River-Underworld area and one operating mine and a couple other mines in the works, the picture could change very quickly. Actually, the picture has already changed for those working in the Peel, like Aurora Geosciences.

Sadly, this raised barely a whimper amongst the mining/pro-development sector even though I know of millions of dollars in contracts at stake.

Worse, I fear this is only the beginning of planning industrial development out of existence in the Yukon. Without access to land, mining will disappear. Economically, this is only possible because we have government spending keeping the Yukon humming. We are “takers” not “givers” to federal coffers. Formally, our exploitation of mineral wealth helped balance the ratio.

Other countries, particularly Finland, have centres of business, learning and tourism. We are missing the business component.

As an example, the city of Whitehorse, with a huge land area, is making a new city plan that will not include claim staking (no claims equals no mines) in city limits (we had mines in the past) and will rebrand us as a “wilderness city.”

Our location and small population precludes a large manufacturing industry; and farming and forestry are out.

That leaves mining and related industries along with tourism as viable businesses up North.

— A concerned citizen in Whitehorse. (name withheld upon request)