Abstract
This presentation will be in French
Last summer, to the surprise of the mining world and the acclaim of citizens concerned about mining development, Quebec Premier François Legault publicly declared as the province was headed into elections “No mining project will go ahead without social acceptability. This is true for this project, and it is true for all other projects.”1 The government has repeated this commitment many times since.
Earlier, in 2020, by refusing to hear the case of the Court of Appeal's judgment in the lawsuit between Strateco Resources and the Government of Quebec, the Supreme Court of Canada established two new legal precedents: first, that the Environment Minister could refuse to authorize a mining project because of a lack of social acceptability; and second, that, overall, social acceptability was defined by the outcome and not by the process undertaken to foster it.2
These political and legal precedents have important consequences for mining developers in Quebec and could also impact the global mining sector’s social practices. Regulators in mining countries tend to review, duplicate or adapt the legal and regulatory norms of other jurisdictions, particularly if these provide more stringent obligations to proponents, with respect to the entire process of design, feasibility, environmental and social impact assessment, permitting and stakeholder participation.
As important, free, prior, and informed consent (FPIC) needs to be at the heart of a trust building relationship with Indigenous Communities and Organization that may benefit or be adversely affected by a mining project. This process must be agile and custom-built.
Therefore, the means and mechanisms implemented by mining compagnies to engage stakeholders must go beyond industry guidelines and best practices to meaningfully involve communities in all stages of project development and decision-making in order to foster social acceptability.
Now at a crossroad, mining compagnies need to willingly adopt and thrive for a culture of social innovation. The traditional extractive business model, increasingly defined as colonial by questioning environmental and citizen groups, must be reviewed through a new prism that reflects the conditions, expectations and needs of local communities and the planet. Socially innovative processes include core and transformational stakeholder engagement, participative grievance resolution, codesign task forces, and collaborative resettlement.
Cédric Bourgeois, co-founder of Transfert Environnement et Société, and Anik Pouliot, specialist in communications applied to public participation, will present a conference in which they will share concrete examples of social innovation in the development of mining projects in Quebec, in addition to common pitfalls and what to expect next.
[2] https://www.cngov.ca/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/09-9554-178-13janv20.pdf