FBI says Agnico Eagle failed to protect caribou at Nunavut gold mine as promised

The federal government says Agnico Eagle Mines is not doing what it promised to protect migrating caribou at the Meadowbank gold mine in Nunavut.

An order issued last month by Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada (CIRNAC) says the company has failed “several times” to meet its obligations under its project certificates for the mine and under the Nunavut Planning and Project Assessment Act.

The order requires the company to adhere to its permits to operate or face fines.

“[Agnico Eagle Mines] has failed to close roads as migrating caribou pass by,” the order, written by CIRNAC resource management officer Kyle Amsel, said.

The 13-page order document details the company’s repeated failures over the past 15 years to implement caribou conservation measures at the mine site, comply with an ecological management plan, and accurately and correctly report on activities.

The federal order follows concerns from the Nunavut government. Last fall, the area’s environmental department wrote to CIRNAC requesting an investigation.

“This is the fourth consecutive year in which the GN has provided proof [Agnico Eagle’s] failure to implement the road closure regulations of the TEMP [Terrestrial Environment Management Plan]” reads a letter sent to regulators in October 2022 by Jimmy Noble Jr., Nunavut’s deputy environment minister.

The Oct. 17 letter, addressed to officials of CIRNAC and the Nunavut Impact Review Board (NIRB), states that the company’s promised caribou conservation measures, outlined in the TEMP, “were an important factor in the GN’s assessment of this project”. It asked federal inspectors to investigate.

A spokesman for the company told CBC News at the time that the company had met all of its obligations and would continue to talk to authorities “to reach a common understanding of this matter.”

In an email to CBC News on Wednesday, Agnico Eagle spokesperson Natalie Frackleton said the company is reviewing last month’s CIRNAC order and “the allegations it contains.”

She also said the company is reviewing items “that have already been addressed by the company as part of its formal annual report review,” but did not provide details.

“The company is confident that it is taking the necessary steps to protect caribou. We will communicate directly with the appropriate stakeholders and will not be making any further public comment at this time,” Frackleton wrote.

Focus on roads at mine site

Concerns about Agnico Eagle’s efforts to protect caribou have largely centered on two roads at the mine complex near Baker Lake, Nunavut: the Meadowbank all-weather access road and the Whale Tail towway, which connects an opencast mine to processing facilities.

Production began at the Whale Tail pit in 2019, the same year production ceased at the Meadowbank mine. The operation at Whale Tail will continue to use processing facilities at the Meadowbank site, with the two sites connected by a 40-mile haul road.

The Nunavut government has said that the company’s TEMP for the Whale Tail mine expansion project includes a requirement to automatically close the road to traffic if a dozen or more caribou are seen within a mile of the road during migration. These are the periods from April 1 to May 25 and from September 16 to December 7.

Amsel’s CIRNAC order calls into question some of the company’s decisions about road closures and the accuracy and thoroughness of its records and reporting over the years. For example, Amsel references the company’s 2018 wildlife monitoring annual report, which noted discrepancies in data collection “causing misleading statistical analyses.”

The same 2018 report included a list of internal company correspondence that “seems to indicate daily road closures” but contains minimal or no data.

The correspondence “appears to have been compiled at random,” Amsel wrote, saying the data “when reviewed has little value in determining whether it meets the TEMP.”

Amsel also references the company’s 2019 wildlife monitoring summary report, which claimed that more migratory caribou were sighted from the all-weather access road that year than in any other year since the surveys began. Amsel calls the statement “factually incorrect and misleading” and points to higher survey numbers years earlier.

Also in 2019, the company reported 94 full days of road closure, but Amsel states that on 82 of those days, the company “disrespected the road closure and allowed things like convoys, daily drives, food truck etc.”