As part of the Premier’s drive to promote mining, the BC government has introduced legislation (Bill 19) to remove permitting requirements for certain so-called “low-risk” mining operations – notably related to exploration. Christy Clark has framed this relaxing of environmental standards as part of her jobs creation strategy. Our friends at the Sierra Club BC have pointed out that a large majority of British Columbians want to see a tightening, not a relaxing, of mining standards, but what should we make of Clark’s claim that giving mining companies free reign for many activities will create jobs?
The claim that environmental regulation stands in the way of employment has recently being gaining traction both in BC and in the U.S. – where the idea is being used by some commentators to push for cuts to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
Although Premier Clark's efforts to reduce regulation in the name of job creation seems based on this notion, many commentators have demonstrated that strong environmental regulations have little or no impact on the available jobs in an economy. Most recently, an excellent article in the Washington Post demonstrates that in the U.S. too, strong environmental laws don’t undermine job creation – they just shift the industries in which jobs are created away from environmentally destructive ones.
[Two different power] plants tell a complex story of what happens when regulations written in Washington ripple through the real economy. Some jobs are lost. Others are created. In the end, say economists who have studied this question, the overall impact on employment is minimal.
“If you’re a coal miner in West Virginia, it’s not a great comfort that a bunch of guys in Texas are employed doing natural gas,” said Roger Noll, an economics professor at Stanford and co-director of the university’s program on regulatory policy. “Some people identify with the beneficiaries, others identify with those who bear the cost, and no amount of argument is ever going to change their minds.” …
Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics show that very few layoffs are caused principally by tougher rules.
Whenever a firm lays off workers, the bureau asks executives the biggest reason for the job cuts.
In 2010, 0.3 percent of the people who lost their jobs in layoffs were let go because of “government regulations/intervention.” By comparison, 25 percent were laid off because of a drop in business demand.
Strong environmental laws could actually result in job creation – in the mining sector, for example, jobs developing and building technology aimed at accurately identifying mineral deposits while minimizing surface disturbance. There’s no incentive to develop such technology if it’s cheaper just to rip up tonnes of rock in the name of exploration.
What industry does need, and BC’s mining laws are failing to deliver, is certainty. BC’s outdated mining laws do a disservice to mining companies and communities by failing to identify areas (other than parks) where mining is unacceptable. The result is that a mining company may invest millions of dollars into developing a project, as is the case with the controversial Prosperity mine, only to find that the risks of the project are unacceptable to the federal and First Nations governments (although not, apparently, to the provincial government, which found that the economic benefits of the mine compensated for the significant environmental impacts – an approach reminiscent of the Premier’s jobs at any cost attitude).
Amendments to BC’s mining legislation are desperately needed, but not this type of ad hoc relaxing of legal requirements based on an ill-informed belief that this will create jobs. Rather than attempting to create jobs through relaxing environmental standards, we need a jobs plan that considers what type of jobs, and type of economy, British Columbia wants going forward. That jobs plan will use strong environmental laws, policies and programs to create sustainable and environmentally responsible jobs. The evidence shows that we can have a healthy environment and jobs as well.
