N.B. confident in MDA negotiations (March 13, 1989)

Formerly a teacher before being elected to the provincial legislature in 1978, Morris Green, 46, spearheaded the effort for the province. He was appointed Minister of Natural Resources & Energy in October, 1987.

Green spoke at length with The Northern Miner at the recent Prospectors and Developers Convention in Toronto. 0000,0600 “We would like to keep the geological expertise we’ve built up in our department since the first MDA was negotiated five years ago,” Green told The Northern Miner. That $22.3-mil lion agreement expires at the end of this month, as do several similar agreements between the other provinces and the federal government.

Under the agreement, and a similar one in the forestry sector, New Brunswick has started an ambitious program of integrating the management of both the forestry and the mineral wealth of the province.

Mining activity in the province, which last year produced about $830 million worth of minerals, is concentrated largely in the northern part of the province, which is host to the largest zinc deposit in the country, the Brunswick No. 12 mine. Having increasing amounts of land designated as park land, and thus being unavailable to mineral exploration, is not a problem in the province (as it is becoming in other parts of the country).

The forest and mining industries work well together in New Brunswick. Clear-cutting and road-building helps prospectors unearth new outcrops while soil sampling and geological mapping helps the forest industry identify areas appropriate for particular species of trees.

The N.B. government is seeking a new agreement to continue the work initiated by the first MDA.

Last year the Department of Natural Resources & Energy generated more income through taxes for the provincial government than the $45 million the department spent during the year.

“If current prices hold, production in 1990 could reach the billion- dollar level, close to equalling the $1.3 billion the province’s forest industry produced last year,” Green says.

“If we’re not in office for the long-term, we’ll certainly set a good foundation for whoever should follow us,” Green said.

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