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Issue link: http://digital.canadawide.com/i/1222419
52 BCBUSINESS APRIL 2020 is beginning to have a real durable com- petitive advantage in environmental and rehabilitation aspects of mining," Rule told his audience. "There's going to be a monster opportunity cleaning up the mess that we've made historically." It's easy to forget the importance of mining to our province, and the founda- tional role it has played in B.C.'s develop- ment. But for those who had forgotten, Energy and Mines Minister Michelle Mungall drove the point home in a very personal Roundup address, discussing the origins of her family house. "My home, like many other homes in Nelson, was built by mining," she recounted. "My house has been able to give 120 years of good life to families because Edward Clark arrived in Nel- son, seeking opportunity that the min- ing boom was giving at the time. He got a job at the Athabasca mine. That min- eral exploration, and the mining that followed, built a community. It built his home in 1900 and put food on the table. It built our schools and built our hospitals. "Just like my house," Mungall con- cluded, "we cannot take mineral explo- ration and mining for granted in British Columbia—just because it's been here for over 100 years. We can't rest on our laurels and think that it's always going to be there. That we don't have to take care of it." Two days after that speech, Mungall, a popular figure in the mining commu- nity, was shuffled out of her portfolio to become minister of jobs, economic devel- opment and competitiveness. As with many cabinet shuffles, the reasons behind the move were opaque—but it proved her point, if nothing else: in mining, in B.C., you can't take anything for granted. n "We cannot take mineral exploration and mining for granted in British Columbia—just because it's been here for over 100 years. We can't rest on our laurels and think that it's always going to be there" – Michelle Mungall