GT1 - Megathread, page-710

I hope I'm right too!!

BM8 looks to have jumped the gun and sent a drilling rig out to site before confirming a formal agreement with Whitesand First Nation. That said, the Ontario Ministry of Mines appears to have issued an exploration licence that didn't require BM8 to have a formal agreement with the relevant first nations group prior to commencing drilling. This looks to be more a stuff up by Ontario Ministry of Mines than BM8 and it seems the wording on existing and future exploration agreements will be more explicit on requirements before drilling. Whitesand's beef seems to be with government trying to assume it has authority to make consultation and an agreement optional rather than compulsory and effectively a shared governance arrangement over mining where both the relevant first nation group and Ontario Ministry of Mines approval is needed. BM8 is caught in the crossfire.

On the plus side, if BM8 follow the timeline they outline of "coming weeks", sign their early exploration agreement and start drilling it will show that this is not about preventing mining but preventing mining that does not properly obtain both Ontario and FN approval before mining.