Proposed Labrador Uranium Ban Concerns speculative owners of multi-national companies

Edited by Traci Lawson

Energy companies with eyes on Labrador are getting nervous after a proposed moratorium on uranium mining on Inuit land passed first reading recently.

On March 5, a legislative Bill calling for a three-year moratorium on mining on Inuit land passed first reading at a meeting of the Labrador Inuit self-government, the Nunatsiavut assembly.

Already the Bill is causing nervousness among companies with eyes on the area.

More than $70 million was spent on exploration in Labrador in 2007, including the largest project involving a uranium deposit near the coastal community of Postville. Aurora Energy Resources is proposing a mine in the area by 2014.

Gerry O'Connell, spokesman for Newfoundland and Labrador Chamber of Mineral Resources, says if the Bill passes, it will kill the mineral industry in the area.

"We don't really know quite what all this means," O'Connell told CBC News. "I supposed it's good that the assembly is still considering the situation, but investors don't like uncertainty. The longer this drags on, the more likely it is that investors might just take their money and go elsewhere."

The Bill is currently scheduled to face a second reading at a Nunatsiavut meeting in April 2008 and will have to pass that before it will be become legislation.

It is apparent that the ownership of uranium mining places their pursuit of commercial profit over the defence of public health and vital ecosystems in Labrador. The "industry" of these transnational enterprises commercial profit that leads to environmental destruction, that in turn spawns the needless suffering of local communities and wildlife.

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