EDITORIAL Ontario mining is in deep trouble

If one suspected that Ontario’s mining industry was past its prime, they need look no further than the recent Prospectors and Developers Association of .T Canada’s annual convention for confirmation.

A full afternoon of the convention was devoted to provincial activities. Jean-Pierre Lalonde, presenting a paper on Quebec, spoke about Financial Assistance to Prospecting: Quebec’s Recent Experience. British Columbia’s presentation was Mt. Milligan Success Highlights Alkaline Suite Porphyry Deposits: B.C.’s New Gold-Copper Giants. New Brunswick offered A New Base Metal Discovery in the Siluro-Devonian Tobique Belt of New Brunswick.

A new discovery, gold-copper giants, assistance for prospectors. They all speak of hope for future success, of better things to come.

Ontario, on the other hand, presented a historical look at a 100-year-old government department The Ontario Bureau of Mines: A 100-Year Prospect.

There’s no doubt that the bureau has played a key role in developing the province’s mineral wealth. The story of its evolution and its sometimes spectacular contributions to the industry is fascinating, but a walk down memory lane is not what the exploration industry needs from the province today.

Prospectors and mine developers in Ontario are hurting. They find themselves under attack from environmentalists while they watch as new laws erode their rights to land access. They are over-regulated by securities commissions and overtaxed by the government it’s the only industry in the province to suffer its own special tax, the Mining Tax. Labor costs are high and climbing with government-mandated levies such as Workers’ Compensation. To top it all off, they are trying to adjust to a new Mining Act, the basic set of legal rules for mineral exploration and development.

The industry is in trouble and its decline in Ontario will be assured unless there are some significant mineral discoveries made in the next few years, discoveries that will only come if exploration companies are allowed to do what they have done so well since the days of Cobalt’s silver boom — raise risk capital for a potential big find.

Ontario’s department of mines is justifiably proud of its accomplishments, but when delegates attend one of the biggest conventions for mineral exploration in the world, the province can’t afford to rest on its laurels. The need for new discoveries to replenish current production is a common theme in these pages, but the need in Ontario is reaching crisis proportions. If Ontario is committed to a vibrant mining industry, it should be talking about tomorrow, not yesterday.