Mineral Exploration is the official publication of the Association of Mineral Exploration British Columbia.
Issue link: http://digital.canadawide.com/i/468124
36 S P R I N G 2 0 1 5 Photograph : BC Hydro "MABC and AME BC were strongly aligned to build a coali- tion that was bigger than industry," says AME BC president and CEO Gavin Dirom. "A lot of private companies, suppliers, small businesses in the northwest, communities including Terrace and Smithers, mayors and councillors, and First Nations, for the most part, were behind this." Byng Giraud, who served as general secretary for the Highway 37 Power Line Coalition during consecutive stints with AME BC, MABC and Imperial Metals, said the organiza- tion's greatest asset was its grassroots support. According to Giraud, there was no effort to manage the message, or the tone, in overtures to government. "Everybody got the information, everybody was empowered and everybody was a spokesperson," he says. "It may not be the message you particularly might think is best, but it's their message. And that's what made it work. "I remember one local welder on his own volition was run- ning ads in the local papers, supporting the power line." Initially, the coalition's economic argument for NTL was bolstered by plans for a massive copper-gold-silver mine at Galore Creek. In 2007, however, things turned bleak when partners Teck Resources and NovaGold Resources decided to reconsider Galore Creek's economics. Former Terrace mayor Dave Pernarowski, now an account manager with PR Associates, recalls what happened next. "We heard that Galore was being basically shelved," Pernarowski says. A group of NTL proponents in Terrace got in vehicles and hurried to Smithers just in time to catch Finance Minister Colin Hansen at the airport. "We talked about the need to continue with the engineering and an environmental process on the power line, about all the potential projects that were on stream to be connected to that line." The province wasn't convinced. It halted preliminary work on NTL and pulled back from a $250-million commitment toward it. So a group of mining companies pitched in $300,000 for an independent study. Released in 2008 by MABC, the study said northwest mineral deposits had the potential to super- charge mine development in the region – $15 billion in new investment, almost 11,000 new jobs, and $300 million per year in new tax revenue. Aside from the economics, other things began to shift in the coalition's favour. "I think the tipping point for the line," says Imperial Metals chairman Pierre Lebel, "was these communities of the north coming together and saying, 'This is a really good thing for us. We're over-reliant on the forest industry, we've got pine kill issues, we have to generate new sources of economic develop- ment, and this line is going to be pivotal to that objective.'" A second circumstance was the 2008 recession. Lebel recalls that the federal government was looking for "shovel-ready" infrastructure projects to stimulate the economy. NTL con- formed to Ottawa's desire for projects with a "green" compo- nent – such as switching Highway 37 communities from diesel to hydroelectricity. A $130-million commitment of federal funding, championed in Ottawa by Prince George–Peace River MP Jay Hill, helped offset B.C.'s financial risk. A third was coalition pressure on the government of then- premier Gordon Campbell. When the premier walked into the 2008 Minerals North conference in Smithers, he was greeted by hundreds of people wearing black-and-yellow Power 37 hats. "During his presentation, he donned the hat and kind of joked that he might be putting on the most expensive hat ever," Dirom recalls. "He was classy about it, and funny at the same time." Amping up: Tower installation near the Skeena River, spring 2013.