General News & Comment Ontario will stop issuing assay coupons

When Ontario’s new Mining Act comes into force next year, the province will stop issuing free assay coupons to licensed prospectors. The total value of the 990 coupons redeemed between April 1, 1988, and March 31, 1989, was about $12,000, mostly for gold fire assays. At present each licensee may obtain two coupons for each claim he has staked and two additional coupons after 40 days’ work on the claim, according to Clause 63 (1) of the existing Mining Act. He is entitled to a maximum of 18 coupons a year. His samples, if sent with the required number of coupons to the government’s Geoscience Laboratories, will be assayed without charge — for example, one coupon in return for one gold assay, one for silver, two for platinum. Otherwise, he will have to pay $11.50-13 for each gold assay and $11.25-12 for silver and $20 for platinum.

A decision, however, was made last spring to discontinue issuing the coupons. John Gammon, director of the Mineral Development and Lands Branch, Ministry of Northern Development and Mines, told The Northern Miner: “Clause 63 (1) will be repealed when the new act comes into force.”

Last year when the government circulated a discussion paper proposing changes to the existing Act, it received 86 replies that favored dropping the clause, said Gammon.

“We compete with the private sector,” he added. Besides, the coupon program is “administratively expensive.” Similar service is usually provided by the ministry’s resident geologists. Gammon also said the province gives grants of $10 million a year to individual prospectors, who can spend the money for the assays if they wish.

Not everyone in the mining community is aware that Clause 63 (1) will be dropped. Prospector J.J. Billoki (T.N.M., March 12/90), for one, still hopes the new Mining Act will allow him more coupons. Whether the government will do so, says mining recorder Vic Miller of Sudbury, depends on the new Act.

Anthony Andrews, managing director of the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada, plans to solicit opinions from prospectors and PDAC directors about the free assay coupons. Should they want the government to issue more coupons to prospectors, he says, they will lobby for more. PDAC has a representative, Reg Tays, on the government’s assessment committee, responsible for generating regulations for the new Act. Tays, says Andrews, will speak on the prospectors’ behalf.

“We must do everything to help prospectors do what they do,” adds Andrews, “Prospecting is unique, extremely important.”