Yukon gov't fires back at former Victoria Gold official over Eagle mine response

The Yukon government is firing back at a former Victoria Gold official who's accused the territory of having a double standard around the response to the Eagle mine heap leach failure earlier this summer.

In a letter to the Yukon News last week, Nico Harvey — former manager of engineering for Victoria Gold's Eagle mine — said the territorial government was "heavy-handed and demanding in its oversight" when Victoria Gold was still in charge of the beleaguered mine, only to become more "passive" once the company was placed into receivership last month.

In a subsequent interview with CBC News, Harvey argued that the territory set Victoria Gold up to fail in the immediate wake of the catastrophic slide at the mine, with unreasonable expectations and unrealistic timelines. That effectively helped the territory force the mine into receivership, Harvey argued.

In a written response to media Tuesday, the Yukon government's director of cabinet communications Jordan Owens put the blame for Victoria Gold's problems back onto the company itself and said the territory had no choice but to seek receivership for the mine in order to ensure the environment was protected.

Owens said that immediately following the June 24 heap leach slide, which released hundreds of millions of litres of toxic cyanide solution into the environment and immediately halted operations at the mine, Victoria Gold officials failed to answer many questions about the incident and what it was doing to deal with it.

"Communications from Victoria Gold Corporation's senior leadership often reflected a lack of appreciation for the seriousness of the situation," reads Owens' statement.

Owens said since an Ontario court appointed PricewaterhouseCoopers as receiver of the mine last month, some company officials have gone public to "criticize, rather than assist in resolving the catastrophe."  

"It is unfortunate that they are focused on the actions taken following the appointment of the Receiver by the Court, rather than what they could have done to better to protect the land, water, animals and people near the Eagle Gold mine — both before and after the incident."

Owens also referred to a July 30 news release from Victoria Gold that suggested the company may not have enough money to "repair damage to equipment and facilities or remediate impacts caused by the incident."

She said that was why the territory went to court to ask that a receiver be appointed. 

"Yukoners simply could not wait and see when Victoria Gold would be down to its last dollar, with urgent remediation required prior to the winter freeze," Owens wrote.

"The order granted by the court establishes a mechanism with confirmed financial resources, including funds provided by [the] Yukon government on a protected priority basis, to ensure that the critical steps required to be taken for the remediation are completed and that Yukon taxpayers would not bear the financial burden of a costly remediation."

Harvey also suggested that the territorial government has been less transparent about the remediation work at the site since Victoria Gold left. He said the Yukon government went from weekly media briefings in July and August to just occasional written updates over the last few weeks.

Owens said the next media briefing — the first since Aug. 23 — will be held on Friday morning.