EDITOR’S NOTE More than gold

To the east and to the west, gold is revitalizing a moribund Canadian mining industry. In Nova Scotia earlier this year, Seabright Resources produced a gold bar from development muck at its Forest Hill property — the first gold produced in the province in 40 years. Newfoundland will soon boast its first major gold mine as bp Selco gears up to put the Hope Brook deposit into production while Gordex Minerals plans to have a New Brunswick gold producer. Quebec and Ontario continue their long-running rivalry as the country’s greatest sources of gold. Puffy Lake and Tartan Lake, along with the already operating MacLellan mine, should put Manitoba back on the gold mining map by the end of this year, and Star Lake has already given Saskatchewan an operating gold mine. British Columbia has the Nickel Plate mine, one of the top five gold mines in the country today and the subject of a feature story by our western editor, Dave Duval, in this issue. With the Ketza River project in the Yukon also getting the green light, only Prince Edward Island and Alberta are not on the gold team.

All in all, we calculate there are 25 gold projects in Canada for which a positive production decision has been made.

Like everyone else in the mining industry these days, we’re thankful for gold. But the health of the gold mining sector masks the problems of other mineral producers. Gold will keep the value of minerals mined in Canada at a high level, but that statistic hides the decline in other areas. As a result, policy-makers take a quick glance at mineral production statistics and say: “Things are going well there, let’s leave it alone.” Whatever positive measures are taken can be misdirected, even with the best of intentions. For example, the main beneficiaries of Ontario’s new 3-year tax-free holiday for new mines will be gold producers — the very people who least need publicly funded assistance these days.

We certainly don’t want to detract from the growth in the gold- mining sector. It’s creating wealth in all regions of the country. But policy makers would do well to remember that mining in Canada — an industry that employs well over 100,000 people and accounts for about one-fifth of the country’s total export earnings — means much more than gold. Those other minerals will have their day again, and we should all be prepared to make the most of it when they do.