The provisions of the Projet de Règlement modifiant le Règlement sur les mines (Draft Regulation amending the Mining Regulation, hereinafter "draft regulation" ) follow the adoption in November 2024 of the Act to amend the Mining Act and other provisions. At the time, the former Minister of Natural Resources and Forests, Ms Maïté Blanchette Vézina, who has since left the Coalition Avenir Québec caucus to join the Conservative Party of Quebec, had committed to including a whole series of provisions designed to consolidate the new rights of Indigenous peoples and local communities in the regulations under the Mining Act.
Sixteen (16) months later, the exact opposite has happened. The flagship measure of this bill was supposed to be tightening the screws on companies seeking to acquire mining rights. The new minister has scrapped his predecessor’s commitment to make the granting of exclusive mining exploration rights – or mining claims – conditional upon the completion of training on the rights and realities of Indigenous peoples and the holding of an environmental certification. Instead of seeking to respond to what the government itself describes as the ‘new global context’ by, in its own words, seeking to ‘gain better control [...] of our natural resources’, the Minister imposes only the trivial obligation of holding a Québec Business Number (NEQ) on multinational companies, a mere formality that can easily be passed on to any lawyer working for them in a major law firm with offices on Rue de la Gauchetière in Montréal.
The draft regulation provides for a paltry 30% increase in mining rights and a 15% increase in royalties relating solely to the extraction of surface minerals.
Even more concerning, the draft regulation represents a dangerous step backwards in its efforts to strengthen ties between developers and Indigenous and local communities by including ‘exchanges’ between them in the list of expenses for mineral exploration work, thereby opening the door to the renewal of exclusive exploration rights (EERs) – or mining claims. However, the costs of this work carried out by operators are already borne by taxpayers through the ‘deductible allowances’ in mining tax granted to mining companies for their ‘consultations with communities’. Worse still, the use of the term ‘engagements with communities’ opens the door to developers seeking to claim as expenses the sums spent by communities in their efforts to defend themselves.
It is not all doom and gloom. We welcome the many provisions aimed at strengthening public safety and protection in the event of the cessation of mining operations. It remains to be seen whether these same measures will be implemented at the hundreds of abandoned mining sites under the State’s responsibility.
Read the full submission here (in French only).