A former Flin Flon city councillor pressed current city council members to take action on keeping local mining facilities open.
In a delegation during the March 5 council meeting, former city councillor Skip Martin called on the City of Flin Flon to form a special task force devoted to keeping the Flin Flon zinc plant and other mining operations going after Hudbay shuts down operations on the site.
Martin brought up several options to be taken by the city to keep the mine site going, including increasing lobbying to provincial and federal governments, allowing a third party company to operate the site as part of a lease agreement with Hudbay or using the Port of Churchill and Hudson Bay Railway as an avenue to move zinc concentrate to Flin Flon.
Martin said he felt city administration was treating the pending closure as a “done deal” instead of working to keep operations going.
“When Tolko announced it was shutting down operations in The Pas, the town worked hard to find a way to keep it open. As a result, a new buyer was found. When Omnitrax decided to close the port and the railway in Churchill, the town worked hard to find a way to keep them open and as a result, a new owner was found. Neither of these towns accepted these closures as a done deal,” he said.
“It seems to me that council is accepting that this closure is a done deal and that to keep the town viable, there is nothing to be done except to look into other economic options such as the arts and tourism. I don’t disagree with exploring all these different economic options. However, I feel that the continuing operation of the zinc plant should be the option that gets the highest priority. I believe this because it is the industry that has maintained this town for over 90 years.”
Mayor Cal Huntley responded to Martin’s request by saying any duties taken on by a task force were already covered by the Regional Economic Development Commission.
“We haven’t done exactly what you’ve said, but we’ve already put together a regional economic development commission of the three communities to address exactly what we’re talking about, as well as the diversification aspect. We’re looking at outside businesses to come in to diversify the economy. We’re talking with Hudbay on different proposals, with regards to what might be possible including McIlvenna Bay, and we have had the conversation with them around purchased concentrate,” he said.
“We’re going to plan for the worst and hope for the best. Planning for the worst, even if the worst doesn’t happen, situates us much better going forward for service, retail and seniors.”
Huntley added that expanding Flin Flon’s economy beyond one industry and welcoming new business would allow the community to take any future economic blows in stride.
“We’re going to make sure we explore as many different opportunities we can to diversify the area and make sure. Ten years from now, if a cornerstone mine is found and suddenly the zinc plant’s going to be here for another 10 years, I don’t want to go through this again in 10 years. I want to make sure that we’ve diversified the region as much as we can possibly do. We have some really good possibilities to significantly diversify the region that may come to fruition that take away the monumental impact of a mine, mill and zinc plant closure.”
