Prince George city representatives helped secure approval for a motion at their annual northern municipal convention calling for the B.C. and federal governments to amalgamate their environmental assessments.
The thought is that reviews of major natural resource projects are being held up by duplicated processes, Prince George city councillor Garth Frizzell said Friday from the convention in Prince Rupert.
A similar motion was defeated last year at the North Central Local Government Association's convention, but this year won a narrow victory. "If a company has two [reviews] going on at the same time, it can be a duplication in some cases, and in other cases it can add a lot of time," said Frizzell, who voted in favour of the motion.
The motion could be passed onto the Union of B.C. Municipalities Association, as well as being used as a lobbying point with the provincial and federal governments.
The B.C. Liberal government has already said it's in favour of eliminating environmental assessment duplication, and the federal Conservative government has made some efforts to streamline its review process.
The push to amalgamate review processes is not universal, as some communities, including First Nations, have called for more scrutiny.
"There are those that want to go slow because they are concerned one system is not as good a safeguard as two," said Prince George City councillor Dave Wilbur, who also voted in favour of the motion.
Municipalities, particularly those in north-central B.C., have been looking to the mining sector as a way to diversify their forest-based economies, particularly with the loss of timber supply from the pine beetle epidemic.
There are several projects in north-central B.C. in the exploration stage, including TTM Resource's $1-billion Chu molybdenum project and Pacific Booker's $516-million gold-copper project.
Local government representatives also voted narrowly in favour of calling on the provincial and federal governments to eliminate health-care premiums for seniors. Both Frizzell and Wilbur voted against the motion, saying that those with higher incomes should pay premiums.
