After much public outcry, the Government of Canada rejected a bid by a Chinese state-owned company to acquire a gold mine in the Canadian arctic on Monday afternoon.
“TMAC Resources Inc. has been informed that the Governor in Council has issued an order under the Investment Canada Act directing Shandong Gold Mining Co., Ltd. and its affiliate not to implement the plan of arrangement. As a result, the Transaction between TMAC and Shandong will not proceed. TMAC and Shandong are in discussions regarding termination of the Transaction,” reads a statement by TMAC Resources.
TMAC Resources Inc. had earlier agreed to sell the Nunavut Hope Bay mine to Shandong Gold Mining Co. for $149 million.
The project underwent a national security review by the federal government under the Investment Canada Act.
A number of national security experts voiced their concerns about the potential purchase and urged the government to reject the purchase.
“This thing has a port attached to it. [China has] written a paper saying they want to be a near-Arctic power. Well, this gives them actual Arctic access,” Fraser told the Globe and Mail.
“If you look at what they have done on the South China Sea to extend their area of influence – what’s to stop them, once they get squatter’s rights and get into this port, of doing the same thing up there?”
Fraser is not alone in his opposition to the deal. Shortly after the purchase was announced earlier this year, former CSIS director Richard Fadden called on the federal government to consider the national security implications of such a deal.
Further, CSIS later warned in their 2019 annual public report that “a number of state-owned enterprises and private firms” with close ties to foreign states were endangering Canada’s national security by purchasing vital Canadian projects.
