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Conference tackles 'social license'

The theme of the second annual Resources North Association conference might be Breaking Down Silos, but the words that emanated most from the stage on the first day was "cumulative effects" and "social license.

The theme of the second annual Resources North Association conference might be Breaking Down Silos, but the words that emanated most from the stage on the first day was "cumulative effects" and "social license."

Stakeholders from government, industry and First Nations took turns explaining the new ways being applied to doing major industrial projects in the north - be they forestry, mining, natural gas. A broader spectrum of calculations is being done to anticipate the pros and cons to the economy and the environment.

"Some will say we are late to the party. Others have been talking about cumulative effects for more than a decade," said Kevin Kriese, an assistant deputy minister with the provincial Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations. He said his and other ministries involved in major resource projects were building new policies as best practices emerge, over and above the ones already written into the environmental assessment process.

The main lesson from this process, said Kriese, was the need for an integrated decision-making process. It requires more talking, more voices involved in that talk, and longer conversations, but the payoffs are more tangible, he said, adding, "we think it will improve the entire natural resources sector. The higher the risks, the more intensive the management of that value has to be."

Glen Wonders, a land-use consultant with extensive experience in the forestry, petroleum and mining industries, said the principles being written into the province's cumulative effects framework were largely based on a 1992 United Nations document called the Rio Declaration. But for true social license to form around any industrial project, the government's protocols had to be flexible.

"Social license is often the perspective of society, in whole or in part," said Wonders. "It is not part of a formal process, per se, and it can change over time... Every mine project and every mining company is unique and has nuances, just like every community."

The three pillars of this equation, he said, were: people, profits, and planet. All were involved and needed to be balanced whenever a project was proposed, carried out, and closed.

If there was one way to innovate even further, and make the go-ahead of a big resource project publicly credible, said Alex Ferguson of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers - and thus make the communities, investors and consumers happy - is not less oversight. It is more oversight.

"I have always been a strong supporter of the Forest Practices Board, in the forestry sector," Ferguson said. "Part of solving that is having that kind of third-party oversight, and part of it is adhering to the strong regulatory oversight by government like B.C. does with the Oil and Gas Commission - world class. Having [a third-party independent auditor] publish and put that out to the public is important. Government doesn't always have that perfect credibility with the public, so there is a place for those third-party overseers."

The Resources North Association carries its annual conference on today at the Civic Centre, ending at 3:30 p.m.