Taseko Mines Timeline
Explainer

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

By Carol Linnitt

May 14, 2020 1 min. read

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This article is more than 5 years old

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.

Another year of keeping a close watch
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Another year of keeping a close watch
Here at The Narwhal, we don’t use profit, awards or pageviews to measure success. The thing that matters most is real-world impact — evidence that our reporting influenced citizens to hold power to account and pushed policymakers to do better.

And in 2024, our stories were raised in parliaments across the country and cited by citizens in their petitions and letters to politicians.

In Alberta, our reporting revealed Premier Danielle Smith made false statements about the controversial renewables pause. In Manitoba, we proved that officials failed to formally inspect a leaky pipeline for years. And our investigations on a leaked recording of TC Energy executives were called “the most important Canadian political story of the year.”

We’d like to thank you for paying attention. And if you’re able to donate anything at all to help us keep doing this work in 2025 — which will bring a whole lot we can’t predict — thank you so very much.

Will you help us hold the powerful accountable in the year to come by giving what you can today?
I’ll support independent journalism

Published By
Carol Linnitt is a journalist, editor, illustrator and co-founder of The Narwhal. Carol has been reporting on energy and environmental politics for...

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