EDITORIAL PAGE — Fighting an anti-mining tide

Ontario’s Ministry of Northern Development and Mines (MNDM) has been taking some hard knocks over the past few years for its failure to promote the mining industry.

The province’s own figures show that mining is the source of $5 billion in annual exports for Ontario. It provides 37,000 well-paid jobs and indirectly at least as many other jobs in supply and service areas. Yet there seems to be an endless stream of government-mandated regulations and paperwork eroding the industry’s economic viability: workers compensation levies, hydro rate increases, pro-union labor legislation, environmental approval processes and expanded liability for environmental damage, to name just a few. To counter some of the criticism, the provincial government recently issued a discussion paper titled Improving Ontario’s Mining Incentives. Perhaps wary of public criticism about spending or perhaps indicative of the low priority mining has within government, this is not one of the glossy reports funded by taxpayers’ money to which we’ve grown accustomed. It’s a low-budget effort, typeset on a personal computer and printed on the office photocopier. Although the MNDM, which published the paper, no doubt welcomes dialogue, the document appears to be little more than a chance for the ministry to say it is doing something for the industry and would like to do more. There are a number of worthwhile programs that have been devised by those in the ministry who are truly concerned about the future of mining in Ontario. There are direct mining incentives such as the Ontario Mineral Incentive Program (OMIP), which provides risk capital under a $6.5-million annual budget, mining tax incentives such as an exemption for mining profits totalling less than $500,000, and high-calibre government services such as the Ontario Geological Survey’s geoscientific information.

This kind of promotion for the positive things Ontario does to support mining is long overdue, but it doesn’t alter the predominantly anti-mining attitude that has been prevalent in Ontario governments of all political stripes over the past decade. While the MNDM does what it can, the overall thrust of government policy is to ignore resource industries other than to take what tax revenue it can. Mining is a mainstay of the provincial economy, but it’s not a growth industry.

The discussion paper outlines some proposals for further incentives, but again, these betray a lack of support within the government more than they stimulate hope within the industry that changes for the better are in store. Most of the ideas are based on expanding or modifying existing programs: increasing the Ontario Prospectors Allowance Program budget, extending OMIP eligibility to industrial minerals projects in southern Ontario, providing forgivable loans or loan guarantees for mine startups.

Even the idea of a junior stock market has been trotted out again, almost as if the ministry is unaware of the Ontario Securities Commission’s concerted efforts to rid the province of junior resource companies.

We sympathize with the MNDM and its efforts to support the industry, but the tide of public policy working against it is too strong. The tinkering that may happen as a result of this paper might keep bureaucrats busy, but there won’t be any real changes to how Ontario treats mining.