Who is Larry Bagnell really representing?
On October 28th, in a non-whipped vote, he voted in favour of Bill C-300, an ill-conceived Liberal attempt to promote environmentally and socially responsible exploration and mining practices on the part of Canadian companies operating in the developing world.
I say ‘ill-conceived’ because, had it passed, the only real impact of the punitive legislation would have been to expose all Canadian exploration and mining companies to frivolous and vexatious allegations, jeopardizing the hard-earned good reputations of responsible companies while providing no solutions at all to the very real issues in the developing world.
Had it passed, the chief impact of Bill C-300 would have been to diminish the international competitiveness of Canadian companies, pushing them out of Canada and costing Canadian jobs à including in the Yukon.
There is no doubt about the need to work diligently towards responsible exploration and mining practices in the developing world, a fact which the Canadian mining industry understands full well à as evidenced, for example, in the e3 Plus Framework for Responsible Exploration promoted by the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada (cf. www.pdac.ca/e3plus/).
Sadly, it would appear Bagnell’s vote on C-300 represented a ‘politically correct’ position in line with the Liberal/NDP/Bloc agenda, but totally out of step with the interests of his Yukon constituency.
Once more, we wish Bagnell would remember who voted for him and who he represents.
Barrett W. Horne, president
Yukon Conservative Association