The mining sector invented the term “social licence” and a lot of people are angry at us for that, but we recognized, some 20 years ago, that our future required us to make sure that we had community support. As a result, we put in place a program called “Towards Sustainable Mining” that is now being exported and adopted by other countries around the world. It has, as its fundamental goal, making sure that the industry works closely with communities and engages them openly and transparently. As a result of that, I think that the polarization around mining projects in Canada has largely diminished.
If you look at project reviews around mining projects over of the past 15 years, you could count on one hand the number that have been controversial or that have generated public opposition. I would add that those examples were rejected, which would speak to, at least at one level—though I may not have agreed with those decisions—an example of how the regulatory system for mining actually works.
As a sector, I think that how we feel, in part, is that the politicization of natural resources, particularly the spillover effects of the controversies around pipelines, has had an affect on the rest of us. I think that if people are asking questions about Canada's investment, a place to invest, they're not looking at the fact that most mining projects have gone through the process and come out the other side and been approved and come with indigenous agreements etc. They just see a cloud hanging over Canada.
That's why I'm urging all of you to think about the harm that this is doing to this country and that we need to depoliticize—all of you—how we are dealing with our natural resource sectors because it's harming everyone.