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Nunavut judge grants injunction again hunters who protested at mine site

Last Updated Mar 3, 2021 at 1:44 pm MDT

IQALUIT, Nunavut — A Nunavut judge has granted a mining company an injunction against hunters who stopped the mine’s operations when they protested at its site last month.

About a dozen Inuit hunters blocked the road and airstrip at the Mary River iron ore mine on northern Baffin Island for a week before leaving on Feb. 10.

Although the hunters ended their protest, mine owner Baffinland Iron Mines Corp. applied for an injunction to prevent them from returning.

The hunters were protesting Baffinland’s proposal to double its output of iron ore and build a 110-kilometre railway from the mine to the ocean.

In her decision, Justice Susan Cooper notes Baffinland’s financial losses from the protest and says there wasn’t evidence to show the hunters wouldn’t return to the mine site.

Cooper says lawyers for the hunters have two days to apply to vary or set aside the injunction.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 3, 2021.

The Canadian Press