Playing favourites, continued

The Ontario government has recently opened up the doors for discussion (if that's what you want to call it) on amendments to the hundred year old Mining Act. Basically they listened to certain groups, quickly threw together changes and opened them up with discussion across the Province. Stopping in Thunder Bay, Timmins, Sudbury, Peterborough and Toronto for town hall style discussions, the government could not have screwed this up any more than they have and have angered pretty much everyone in the process. The town hall meetings were held on short notice in August which is in the middle of exploration season and many prominent members of the mining community were busy working and couldn't attend. The "discussion" was pretty much a list of changes and how we felt about them. It didn't leave us an opportunity to recommend changes, it didn't give us the chance to debate their ideas, it was pretty much a document saying "This is what we're changing, deal with it, oh and by the way hurry up".

Not only was all this done on short notice but they informed us they wanted it passed in parliament in the October session, this drew some pretty serious outrage, especially in communities such as Thunder Bay, Timmins and Sudbury. It's almost November now and it hasn't gone anywhere, the land owners, natives, prospectors and government officials are still arguing about the piece of paper that legislates this provinces most profitable industry.

The worst part of it all (or best?) is that they opened up the discussion by stating Ontario was a world leader in mining, as a province we're on the top of the list when compared to entire nations. Why are we so eager to change something that isn't broken then? Why can't we continue on the leads of respected mining companies who have struck great deals with native communities and why can't we be proud of an ever expanding environmental safety record? Why can't people from Southern Ontario learn that just because companies are prospecting near their farmland it doesn't mean they will stomp on their crops and build a mine on their house.

Let's stop trying to please every single group by government action and let's stop pretending to all these groups that they are the favourites. For a sustainable and profitable mining industry we need all members involved and the only one who in on this latest round was the Government of Ontario.