US Firm Launches NAFTA Case

Barry Appleton, the Toronto-based lawyer for Bilcon, said one example of unequal treatment was the recent provincial approval of the Moose River, N.S., gold mine, where the environmental review of the open-pit facility required only 11 months. "This (Bilcon's) process took over 5 1/2 years and while this was going on, many other similar types of projects had much quicker, simpler and significantly fairer kinds of assessments," he said. "This is about NAFTA guarantees that everyone will have a fair and impartial process ... This fell very well short of the mark." Robert Fournier, who chaired the joint panel, said he didn't wish to comment on the allegations of unfairness. However, the oceanography professor at Dalhousie did take issue with Appleton's comment that the panel had taken too long to submit their report. He said the panel only sat for three years before issuing the report in October 2007, and part of that period was "spent waiting for the proponent to come forward with documentation." "The panel wasn't dilly dallying. There were many components to this, and it took over a year for the proponent to produce an environmental impact statement," he said in an interview. Bilcon had planned to build a basalt quarry on a 152-hectare site about 30 kilometres southwest of Digby at White Point, N.S. The company had hoped to extract over two million tonnes of the volcanic rock over the next five decades to use for construction aggregate. But the proposal was met with stiff opposition from a highly organized citizens group that argued the large quarry would harm the environment and disrupt the area's quiet way of life. ... http://money.canoe.ca/News/Sectors/Mining/2008/02/05/4828406-cp.html

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