Crocodile Tears
Northback’s half-assed version of Crocodile Dundee whines that coal opponents are not playing fair -- by asking questions he doesn’t want to answer
Northback CEO Mike Young whined to Fort Macleod town council this week that critics of his Grassy Mountain coal mine gambit are posing questions that he is not prepared to answer.
“Sometimes I feel like we’re playing a hockey game where there are no referees; people want the game to start before the puck, before we even get there. That’s not the way it works, that’s not fair.”
Poor Mike. He does, after all, knows a thing or two about losing.
Young studied geology in Canada and then, in his own words, “met a girl and followed her to Australia” where he toiled in the Outback for 30 years, scratching for iron ore, shilling a penny uranium stock, and, quite ludicrously, rebirthing himself as a green energy evangelist. Then, from the slag heap of a failed career, another Australian girl dusted him off and and sent him back to Canada to grub for coal.
Mike Young was hailed as a startup wizard when he joined Australia’s Vimy Resources in 2014 after years of digging iron ore from the wastes of Western Australia. By 2021, the penny-stock uranium promoter was running out of capital and Young’s pay was cut along with that of his employees.
"We have listened to our shareholders, who have asked us to try and reduce overheads and we've done that. For example, I'm on salary sacrifice for shares, a lot of our employees are as well, and some are part-time.” (Mining Journal February 12, 2021) Six months later, he was out, along with the rest of the executive team. (Market Screener, August 21, 2021)
In late 2021, Young signed on as CEO of solar energy promoter Frontier Energy. “I’ve been an advocate for clean energy my whole life, so this is just a natural progression,” Young told the Australian investor site Stockhead. By July, he was out: “After eight months of being involved with the Bristol Springs Solar Project it has become apparent that the skills I bring to the table, regarding native title, tenure and project approvals are not needed for this project, given its advanced stage of development,” he said. (Proactive, July 25, 2022)
But Australia’s mining dominatrix Gina Rinehart saw Mike as a perfect match-up for her own spectacular failure — a clapped out Canadian coal mine she foolishly bought from another infamous Australian mine promoter, Riversdale Resources. Months after she paid more than $600 million for Alberta’s Grassy Mountain promotion, Canadian regulators denied her permission to proceed, citing the risk of selenium poisoning, the coal’s poor value and the exaggerated economic benefits she promised.
Grassy Mountain was dead, buried and putrefying. To soothe her ample pride, Gina needed to disinter it. Mike Young, burned by his uranium venture and scorched again by his exposure to solar energy, was the perfect Zombie grave robber.
So, four years after Grassy Mountain was dismissed by regulators as “not in the public interest”, here was Mike Young in his half-Australian accent, telling Fort Macleod’s elected councillors that they had no right to question the environmental impact of his Frankenstein mine project.
“I know you sent me some questions, but I am not answering them today, and I’ll tell you why. Because in those questions there’s the following statement: ‘Please ensure that you provide full and detailed answers to those questions at the hearings being conducted by the AER (Alberta Energy Regulator).’
“We will when we go through our environmental review,” Young said dismissively. “A council chamber is not a proper forum for a scientific debate.”
Then, adding insult to insult, he told the councillors: “We don’t need you to support the mine because you haven’t got the information to make a decision.”
Neither councillors nor citizens should be raising concerns about water quality, Young argued, because “Until there is a mine, there is no possibility of there being a concern.”
The Northback CEO was particularly irked by online commentators: “I see all the notes on Substack, so I see all the questions and concerns.”
Moments later, he made himself a liar: “I don’t read much of the online stuff because I’m too busy looking at cycling videos.”
Former mayor of Lethbridge and current spokesperson for Water For Food, Chris Spearman, observed: “In my 26 years of elected public service, I never previously saw a situation where a presenter refused to answer questions from elected officials.
“No municipal council should allow Mr. Young and Northback the opportunity to present at public council meetings unless they are prepared to answer questions.”
We here at the Crowsnest Headwaters Substack understand Mike Young’s concern at being asked questions in public by town councillors. What if his new Australian girl finds out how arrogant and offensive he is to officials elected by Albertans to be stewards of the public good?
Maybe Gina will wise up and “pissing off elected officials” will join “not mining uranium” and “failing to develop solar energy” to the areas of expertise on his curriculum vitae.
Link to Fort Macleod Council video (Starts at 27:00)
Thanks,Dave! Hilarious!