A gold mine south of Prince Rupert, B.C., is now the subject of a multi-million dollar lawsuit filed against the provincial government.
“They invested money in good faith in British Columbia, hoping to bring jobs and prosperity here, and instead have ended up in this place where they can’t do anything and that’s simply not acceptable,” Joan Young, a lawyer at McMillan LLP, told Global News.
The Yellow Giant mine on Banks Island began commercial production in 2015, but was shut down by the province that same year after releasing excess tailings and effluent.
In the lawsuit, MCC Canadian Gold Ventures says after the original owner went bankrupt they were lobbied by the province to take over the mine, and did in 2019. However, after investing millions to clean it up, the province in 2024, without warning, suspended the company’s mining rights through orders in council.
“They get told after the fact that there’s been kind of a secret arrangement and you can’t go ahead and that’s not, from their perspective, the way we should be doing business in British Columbia,” Young said.
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The suit claims the province made the move to help settle a separate legal dispute with the Gitxaala Nation.
The mine is on Gitxaala territory and it came in the aftermath of the Nation’s successful challenge of the province’s mining claims regime.
A notice of civil claim reads: “The province acquired significant advantages and benefits from the taking of MCC’s property interests” and therefore “avoided significant environmental liability” and “resolution and partial settlement of existing litigation with the Gitxaala Nation.”
The plaintiffs say they have no issue with the Gitxaala; this is purely about the province’s alleged actions and as the NDP government pursues more mining investment, this fight could send a conflicting message.
“You have investors in place here that chose to invest in British Columbia, that played by the rules to this point; they expect and frankly deserve a fair shake, and they haven’t received that; the opposite has happened,” Todd Stone with the BC Association for Mineral Exploration said.
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