EDITORIAL — Boosting mineral exploration — Miners love Manitoba

Gold prices may be in a slump and nickel prices barely breathing, but Manitoba is still pushing ahead with its goal to boost mineral exploration by 50% by the year 2000 from 1993 levels. At the same time, the mine-friendly province hopes to increase the value of its mineral production by 20% and boost oil production by a similar amount in the same time period.

Most Canadian provinces talk about supporting mining, but Manitoba does more than talk the talk. It makes miners and explorers feel wanted, and this welcome-mat approach has been absent in too many parts of the country for too long.

Every year, Manitoba spells out exactly what steps were taken to reach its goals of expanding exploration and mine production. And it does not take more than a quick flip through the province’s 1996-1997 annual report to see that Manitoba is living up to its commitment to make miners and explorers feel at home.

For example, the Mineral Exploration Assistance Program (MEAP) attracted 27 new companies to explore in Manitoba last year, raising to 35 the number of new companies active there. During the same period, 44 projects received approval for assistance funds totalling $2.2 million, with total proposed exploration expenditures of $10.6 million. And it approved 22 new prospector assistance program projects totalling $83,346 of provincial program funding.

On the technical front, Manitoba’s Ministry of Energy and Mines assessed 145 new reports of exploration work, which were added to the assessment report files, for a total number of 3,772 reports. Programs and procedures were revised in order to maintain land accesss and security of tenure on lands having high mineral potenital. The Mines and Minerals Act and regulations were simplified, along with the fee schedule under the regulations.

The ministry signed a bilateral geoscience accord with the Geological Survey of Canada to co-ordinate planning, management and implementation of geological survey planning. And, with strong industry support, the ministry completed development of a new, multi-agency plan for geological survey work in the Thompson nickel belt.

Granted, most other provinces carry out similar programs and inititiatives to support the mining industry. But, in some cases, it appears that these efforts are furtive, so as not to upset environmental extremists. Only rarely do provinces state unequivocal support for the resource industries that remain the cornerstone of their economies.

Manitoba does more than support the mining industry; it promotes and markets the province as a good place to do business. Quebec is no slouch in this department either, and Ontario is now doing more to attract investment in its mining sector. British Columbia has some way to go, though Premier Glen Clark is doing a better job than his green-at-all-costs predecessor, Michael Harcourt.

Economists long ago predicted that mining was a “sunset industry” that would go the way of the dodo bird as we became a more industrialized nation. But many failed to realize that raw materials would remain the cornerstone of industrialization, and many failed to recognized that mining had advanced to the stage where it was making use of sophisticated equipment and technologies to boost productivity and reduce costs.

Canada is an exporting nation and is likely to remain so in the next century.

The challenge in the years ahead will be to ensure that value-added accrues to as much resource production as possible. We also need to give credit where credit is due, by recognizing the value of those who find the raw materials for industrialization in the first place.