Editorial The public sees a good future for mining

It’s heartening to know most Canadians don’t believe that mining in this country is a sunset industry.

We know that and the industry knows that, even in a period (with the exception of the gold sector) when times are about as tough as they have ever been. The public perception of mining, though, has never been particularly strong nor particularly accurate.

The notion, then, that in fact a major segment of the Canadian public does perceive a healthy future for the mining industry came as a bit of a surprise, when it was presented by federal Mines Minister Gerald Merrithew at a luncheon at the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada’s annual convention.

“There have been those who questioned whether mining has a future,” he said. “There has been some doom-and-gloom talk in certain circles that mining was great in its day but that its day is past and that it is a sunset industry.”

Dismissing the sunset theory as, in effect, just so much hogwash, Mr Merrithew said the great majority of Canadians don’t accept that view either.

In a recent public opinion survey Canadians were asked what they thought the future held in store for the mineral industry, he said. On a national basis, 65 per cent said mining would play the same, or an even greater, role in the country’s economic future. Only 23 per cent said it would play a lesser role.

Obviously, Canadians have faith in the industry; and to the question posed at this year’s pda convention, “What’s after gold?,” most Canadians would answer “more gold.”

And platinum. And industrial minerals. And base metals. And those to discover and develop them, the “select few” even among those at the convention, who will write their own names into the history books of Canadian mining.

While on the subject of public attitudes, it’s unfortunate, to say the least, that a fatal shooting should have occurred at the PDA convention. The horrifying event drew massive publicity in the general media and is certain to have left a bad impression of mining and mining speculation in the public mind.

It’s doubly unfortunate that it happened at a time when, as Mr Merrithew noted in his speech, there seems to have been a general improvement in public attitudes. The wound that the shooting opened in this regard will take a long time now to heal. Also, it should be made clear that neither victim nor the accused were members of the PDA nor registered delegates at the convention.