hfxnews.southam.ca
Thursday, March 12, 1998
Barren listing 'in bad faith,' Regal argues
By RACHEL BOOMER -- The Daily News
When the province revoked Regal Goldfields' access to Jim
Campbells Barren and put it back on a list of protected sites, it
acted illegally and for purely political reasons, Regal's lawyer
said yesterday in Nova Scotia Supreme Court.
"This is directed against one group of companies, one
company, and that is Regal," lawyer Stewart McInnes argued.
"This is discrimination and it reeks of bad faith."
Regal - which owns or has options to explore 95 per cent of the
barren for gold - wants Justice Gerald Moir to overturn the
province's decision to cut off its access permit. It's also asking
Moir to rule the barren should not have been re-listed as a
protected site.
Failing that, the company wants Moir to award compensation
for the $10 million it says it's already spent on exploration. It
filed its lawsuit against government and the minister of natural
resources in January.
"We have eight targets in the Cheticamp Highlands, two of
which are within the barrens, and one of those is a very
significant target," company president Richard Brissenden told
reporters outside the courtroom.
In an affidavit filed with the court, Brissenden said geologist
Fenton Scott estimates the barren contains at least 145,000
ounces of gold worth about $60 million US.
Off list, then back on
Jim Campbells Barren, a 17-square-kilometre site east of
Cheticamp on the border of the Cape Breton Highlands
National Park, has been the centre of controversy for more
than two years. Originally listed as one of 31 protected sites in
December 1995, it was yanked off the list by the Savage
government in December 1996 after lobbying by the Cheticamp
Development Corporation.
Premier Russell MacLellan announced Oct. 29 the barren
would be put back on the protected list. Natural Resources
Minister Ken MacAskill wrote Regal shortly afterward, telling
the company its access to the barren, which is considered
Crown land, was revoked. In February, the province put a
moratorium on all exploration work on the barren - which
McInnes said it did in response to Regal's lawsuit. The
company's exploration licences are still intact, but will expire if
Regal can't work on the land before December 31, 1998.
Under pressure
McInnes argued yesterday the province didn't have the right to
revoke Regal's access to the barren under the Mineral
Resources Act. He said it was a bad-faith decision made in
response to public pressure, and Regal should have been
allowed to work on the barren because its licence predated the
moratorium.
If the province is allowed to list or de-list lands at its political
whim, McInnes told Moir, "then any mining claim can be
interfered with at any time."
The province's lawyer, Reinhold Endres, said it is the natural
resources minister's job to interfere with mining claims if that's
in the public interest, and argued because the barren is Crown
land, the minister can grant or deny access as he sees fit.
"Someone's got to decide the case, or people are going to hurt
each other over it, and that person is the minister."
McInnes argued yesterday the Savage government's decision to
take Jim Campbells Barren off the protected list was made after
a long public consultation process. Environmentalists sitting in
on the case didn't agree.
"There was no public consultation regarding the de-listing of the
barren. It was done in secret. Nobody knew about it. Not even
the people of the community nearby were aware that this was
happening until it was a done deal," said Ray Plourde, director
of the Nova Scotia Salmon Association and spokesman for a
coalition of environmental groups observing the case.
Endres will finish arguing the government's case today. |
