Yukon politicians could hold an official with the company managing the cleanup of a disaster at the Eagle Gold mine in contempt of Parliament after she refused to answer questions in front of the legislature.
Debate on a contempt motion in the Yukon legislature was adjourned until Monday after days of duelling letters over whether the court-ordered receiver, PricewaterhouseCoopers, can be forced by elected officials to publicly answer questions.
On the same day politicians debate the official scolding, PricewaterhouseCoopers says it will go to court to hear from a judge whether its officials have to appear before members in the legislature.
On April 16, Yukon members of the legislature unanimously passed a motion calling for PricewaterhouseCoopers senior vice-president Michelle Grant, as well as another senior official, to appear in front of a committee as witnesses to answer questions about the receivership, operations and management of the mine site.
The appearance is set for Tuesday, but lawyers for the company argued in a letter this week that only a court order could force them to appear, saying that they are “unable to find any compelling authority” that the legislative assembly has the power to make them.
The Eagle Gold mine was the site of a disaster on June 24, 2024, after a heap leach containment facility failed, dumping millions of tonnes of cyanide-soaked ore into the environment, and PricewaterhouseCoopers was made receiver in August.
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The letter says the receiver is an officer of the court subject to bankruptcy legislation, which does not consider the possibility of having to provide testimony before a government body.
The company says it has already made extensive amounts of information available to the government and regulators, as well as to the public through updates posted online.
“In light of all of these steps, the receiver does not know what further information the Yukon legislative assembly requires,” it says.
A lawyer for Speaker of the House Jeremy Harper responded in her own letter that Parliamentary privileges and the power to summon witnesses date back to the 1800s, and that going to court to try to prevent the appearance was “doomed to fail” because the courts don’t have the authority to review how the legislative branch exercises privilege.
The letter says the contempt power “may be invoked by the assembly to address any conduct that is an affront to its dignity and authority.”
Anuja Kale-Agarwal, a spokesperson for PricewaterhouseCoopers Canada, said in an email statement Friday that until a judge in Ontario, where the receivership was granted, considers the arguments, “the receiver cannot confirm that they are authorized to attend to provide testimony to the Yukon legislative assembly.”
“If the court considers it appropriate for the receiver to appear before the Yukon legislative assembly, the receiver will do so in accordance with the court’s direction.”
Harper’s lawyer suggests in her letter that a court in Ontario does not have the jurisdiction to review the Yukon legislative assembly’s actions.
Yukon Party Opposition Leader Currie Dixon, whose party tabled the contempt motion, said in an interview Friday that more than $100 million in taxpayer money has been provided to PricewaterhouseCoopers to conduct work at the mine site and there are concerns about the lack of progress regarding the cleanup.
“As far as we know, the actual slide itself has not even begun to be cleaned up. There has been a lot of money spent on creating water treatment ponds and handling water, but there’s still significant concerns from the community, from Yukoners in general, and from the industry about what’s going on at the site,” he said.
“And so, regardless of the details of the questions, we think that it’s only fair that PricewaterhouseCoopers, that is spending hundreds of millions of dollars of Yukon taxpayer dollars on this work, that they appear before the legislature and answer questions about the concerns that we’ve been hearing.”
Yukon Energy Minister John Streicker said in a statement Friday that the government continues to support the decision to call the court-appointed receiver to testify as a witness, but that when it comes to the contempt motion “a court process has already been initiated.”
“We support their request to have the receiver appear before the assembly, while also supporting the receiver’s request to ensure that they have the necessary authorization and guardrails that can only be provided by the court through the process by which they were appointed,” he said.
Streicker said having representatives from PricewaterhouseCoopers testify “should be done in a way that respects the role of the courts in setting direction and maintains the integrity of the receivership.”
