Pay attention to this story for it is far from done with.

This week the Canadian Supreme Court ruled that the Canadian Gov't acted unlawfully by excluding some public input from its evaluation of Imperial Metal's Red Chris Project.

Under Canadian law, a proponent seeking to build a mining project has to abide by the relevant Provincial legislation as well as something called MMER (Metal Mining Effluent Regulations). In addition, if a body of water is to be used as a tailings management facility, then the Dept of Fisheries must also approve of the project.

Somehow in the application to build the Red Chris project, the Federal Govt authorities decided that a comprehensive project review as per Federal regulations was not required. The project was then given the go ahead green light.

MiningWatch Canada - an NGO, anti mining group and several other such groups launched a lawsuit which ended up going all the way to the Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court has not overturned the Red Chris approval, but by its ruling the Court has now basically said that the Federal Gov't must take a more rigorous approach to reviewing mining projects in the future.

Net result - the process for mining approvals is now about to get a whole lot more arduous.  And, environmental NGO groups are now going to get a whole lot more vocal. Not exactly the type of setting that will entice mining companies to build mines.