EDITORIAL Leave well enough alone in boom times

At a time when Saskatchewan, along with much of the rest of Canada, is enjoying one of the greatest exploration booms in the history of the province, it appears less than wise for the Saskatchewan government to tamper with a contributing factor in that boom.

According to W. Bruce Dunlop, regional vice-president of The Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada, Saskatchewan’s ministry of energy and mines plans to shut down the mining recording and map distribution office in Creighton, Sask., located just about on the border with Manitoba, and consolidate it with the mining recorder’s office in La Ronge, a considerable distance to the west.

Moving the one geologist, who also acts as mining recorder and map distributor at Creighton, Mr Dunlop says, is tantamount to cutting back on exploration services just at a time when something more than $50 million is being spent on grassroot exploration in Saskatchewan.

And, as was noted in last week’s Junior Mining issue of The Northern Miner, that current exploration boom in the province includes exploration expenditures on precious metals which will surpass and in fact be close to double expenditures on uranium, for the first time in the province’s history.

Small wonder, then, that the PDAC executive complains, in a letter to Saskatchewan Energy and Mines Minister Pat Smith, that the closure of the Creighton office is a retrograde step, and one which does not make sense. The standard of living in the province, he contends, requires a strong mining industry, which will not be possible without a strong mining recording office both in La Ronge and Creighton.

Mr Dunlop makes a good case for reconsideration of the government’s move, and we urge Minister Smith to look again, and very carefully, at a change which appears to have little to recommend it, certainly not on the cost-saving grounds which are said to have inspired it. Other provinces should take note, too.