Taseko Mines Timeline

A timeline from birth to death of Taseko’s embattled New Prosperity mine in B.C.

The Supreme Court of Canada rejected an appeal by a mining company that has, for decades, been fighting to construct a gold and copper mine in an area considered sacred to the Tsilhqot'in First Nation

The Taseko Mines saga to construct the New Prosperity gold and copper mine has likely, finally, come to an end with a Supreme Court of Canada decision Thursday to reject a company appeal.

The 12-year effort to construct an open-pit mine began with a proposal that involved turning Fish Lake — a place sacred to the Tsilhqot’in Nation — into a tailings pond. That proposal was rejected by a federal review panel, but approved by the province of B.C. The company then made revisions to the project design to avoid draining Fish Lake, dubbing it the ‘New’ Prosperity Mine, in 2011.

The project has been declared dead and then alive again several times over but the Supreme Court decision may signal the final nail in the mine’s coffin.

Here’s a timeline of events leading up to Thursday’s legal ruling.

Like a kid in a candy store
When those boxes of heavily redacted documents start to pile in, reporters at The Narwhal waste no time in looking for kernels of news that matter the most. Just ask our Prairies reporter Drew Anderson, who gleefully scanned through freedom of information files like a kid in a candy store, leading to pretty damning revelations in Alberta. Long story short: the government wasn’t being forthright when it claimed its pause on new renewable energy projects wasn’t political. Just like that, our small team was again leading the charge on a pretty big story

In an oil-rich province like Alberta, that kind of reporting is crucial. But look at our investigative work on TC Energy’s Coastal GasLink pipeline to the west, or our Greenbelt reporting out in Ontario. They all highlight one thing: those with power over our shared natural world don’t want you to know how — or why — they call the shots. And we try to disrupt that.

Our journalism is powered by people just like you. We never take corporate ad dollars, or put this public-interest information behind a paywall. Will you join the pod of Narwhals that make a difference by helping us uncover some of the most important stories of our time?
Like a kid in a candy store
When those boxes of heavily redacted documents start to pile in, reporters at The Narwhal waste no time in looking for kernels of news that matter the most. Just ask our Prairies reporter Drew Anderson, who gleefully scanned through freedom of information files like a kid in a candy store, leading to pretty damning revelations in Alberta. Long story short: the government wasn’t being forthright when it claimed its pause on new renewable energy projects wasn’t political. Just like that, our small team was again leading the charge on a pretty big story

In an oil-rich province like Alberta, that kind of reporting is crucial. But look at our investigative work on TC Energy’s Coastal GasLink pipeline to the west, or our Greenbelt reporting out in Ontario. They all highlight one thing: those with power over our shared natural world don’t want you to know how — or why — they call the shots. And we try to disrupt that.

Our journalism is powered by people just like you. We never take corporate ad dollars, or put this public-interest information behind a paywall. Will you join the pod of Narwhals that make a difference by helping us uncover some of the most important stories of our time?

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