Both Lac-Mégantic and the tailings pond collapse at Mount Polley are the inevitable result of federal and provincial government policies involving the gutting of regulatory agencies and the laws they used to enforce: No regulations, no oversight, no penalties, no insurance, no maintenance. All that is left is to put the blame on the operator of the bulldozer or the grader.
This deregulation creates immense pressure on all companies – even responsible ones – to take part in a race to the bottom in order to be competitive. Large shareholders (the only ones who really have a say in how the company is run) will demand that ‘their’ company show a similar level of profitability to that of the criminals.
Reports (which I sincerely hope are incorrect) are already coming out of salmon caught downstream with their skin peeling off, while the B.C. Liberals frantically try to downplay the toxicity of the tailings and the severity of the disaster. A smile isn’t going to cut it.
The chances of the Imperial Metals, the same company that owns the Mount Polley mine, getting their Ruddock Creek proposal accepted by the people of B.C. just became a whole lot slimmer.
Richard Smiley, Anglemont