“Obviously, when you dig holes here, you know, you create some environmental issues and those have to be addressed, but that can’t stop development, any more than we would let that stop development in Toronto, Montreal or Vancouver,” Harper said, drawing applause from local workers at the Meadowbank gold mine, as he took questions from reporters.

“The people here care about the environment. They’re partners in the environment but they have as much right to development and opportunity as people in any other part of the country.”

The Meadowbank project was launched in recent years by Toronto-based Agnico-Eagle Mines Limited, following a $1.4 billion investment that was originally designed to stay open for about a decade, creating hundreds of jobs and regional growth.

Officials from Agnico-Eagle Mines say they are benefiting from booming metal prices and mining more than $1-million worth of gold every day with local workers as well as southern Canadians flown in and out every month, at the company’s expense, to work 14-day shifts, before going home.

The project received a break from Environment Canada, which agreed to designate fish habitat in a nearby lake as a dumping zone for tailings waste.

“There was no reason to destroy this fish habitat other than cost,” said Catherine Coumans, an Ottawa-based research coordinator for MiningWatch Canada, an advocacy group. “It is cheaper (for the company) to dump tailings into natural water bodies than build an on-land impoundment.”

Jean Robitaille, a senior vice president for technical services, explained that the solution minimizes environmental impacts of creating a tailings impoundment area on the site, noting that the company is also required to mitigate impacts of its activity and create new habitat for about 3,000 fish in the affected portion of the lake.

“If you look at the big picture, it’s a small footprint,” said Robitaille.

He said the company is also dedicated to helping the entire region grow.

“We’re not here just to come and go out and take the gold and leave,” he said. “We want to develop.”

Stephane Robert, the company’s environment intendent, said the company is spending $25-million to create new fish habitats in the project, monitoring impacts on other animal species such as caribou, birds, wolverines and foxes, and that it has also set aside $48-million to seal the tailings area with four metres of rocks following the end of the project to ensure that the waste remains frozen and buried.

Harper, who also announced an investment of $230,000 over three years to create a new regional economic development office based in Iqaluit, the capital of Nunavut, noted that all projects go through a detailed and expensive environmental review process.

“Are there effects of development on the environment? Absolutely there are effects,” Harper said. “We seek to minimize those effects. We seek to remediate those effects and we work closely with local communities and particularly with aboriginal groups in parts of the country like this to ensure that we minimize our … impact.”

He also said his government has refused some permits over environmental concerns in the past, but that under normal circumstances, it wants projects to occur.

Harper also touted a series of existing federal infrastructure and research programs for supporting new economic and social development in the Arctic, including a $100-million program created at Natural Resources Canada in 2008 that helps map energy and minerals in the region.By Mike De Souza.

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