Editorial Mining industry should help sell free trade

The tide of opposition to the Canada/U.S. free trade agreement continues to mount, and we think Canada’s mining industry, which has a good deal to gain from it and a lot to lose if it fails, should be doing everything it can to help save the deal from an untimely death.

One trouble right now is that because we still haven’t seen the final version of it, details are hazy on key components of the agreement, and its proponents have little new to add for public consumption and understanding. The deal’s opponents, on the other hand, have slight compunction in attacking it on just those grounds, and are grabbing headlines across the country. Arguments against it from politicians, labor leaders, analysts and ordinary housewives are continuing to flood the nation’s media, and it’s small wonder that recent public opinion polls have shown an increasing sense of unease across the country about the free trade pact.

Some pretty influential names have emerged on the side of the big opposition battalions. They include Ontario Premier David Peterson, who has moved from scepticism to outright antagonism, and can count among his supporters such other provincial premiers as Prince Edward Island’s Joseph Ghiz, and Manitoba’s Howard Pawley. Peterson, in particular, has been campaigning vigorously on the issue outside his own province in recent days, and even though neither he nor the other provincial leaders have direct veto power over the agreement, they can have a powerful effect on the final outcome.

Obviously, Peterson is unswayed by what he knows of the importance of the free trade deal to the mining industry in his province, as well as in the rest of Canada. The question is, does he know enough? Does he understand the serious consequences of the deal’s failure to one of Ontario’s biggest industry segments, and a major employer?

We’ve seen virtually mountains of press material about the deal’s dangers to the auto industry, and, say, the country’s wine makers, but actually very little about its benefits to the mining industry and others. That can be blamed partly on the nature of news and the media, but we also believe that mining has so far not done enough to publicize its own case, nor to throw its weight behind the effort to show the over-all advantages of the free trade agreement to Canada.

Considering what’s at stake here, the situation seems to cry for more action. The industry might for instance, through both federal and provincial associations, institute media campaigns, step up the pace of lobbying at both federal and provincial government levels, and encourage industry leaders to take the message to public forums. .NA6

** Getty is encouraged by Yukon drilling **

Getty Resources and Fairfield Minerals report further encouraging results from a recently-completed drill program on the zinc/ silver Logan property west of Watson Lake, Yukon Territory.

Some of the better intercepts from the 44-hole, 25,000-ft program include 223.1 ft at a grade of 5% zinc, 0.71 oz silver per ton, 187 ft at 5.01% zinc, 0.98 oz silver, and 16.5 ft at 15.18% zinc, 3.01 oz silver.

Getty says drill holes No 31 to 38 represent additional data from the original discovery area on the property, and confirm both strike and depth continuity in the main area. Holes 44 and 45 represent assay results from the initial two holes completed on a separate, newly- discovered, mineralized area about 700 ft east of the main mineralized zone.

The company notes that both mineralized zones sub-crop and are considered amenable to open-pit methods. The geological structure being investigated exhibits a minimum strike length of four miles and has been drill-tested to date for a total length of about 5,500 ft, Getty says.