LETTERS TO THE EDITOR — Minister should get serious

At the recent Prospectors & Developers Association of Canada convention in Toronto, I had the opportunity to hear the Honourable Chris Hodgson, minister of Northern Development and Mines for the province of Ontario, expound to a large, attentive crowd in the Ontario Pavilion on the virtues of investing in mineral exploration in Ontario. In attendance were mining, exploration and financial people from across Canada and around the world.

The minister’s speech was initially quite positive, upbeat and well presented. However, he concluded by bringing up the bane on any future exploration in Ontario, the Lands For Life initiative. This is an initiative which will see the portion of the province covered by parks and protected lands at least double in area. Currently in Ontario, all parks and protected areas are off-limits to mineral exploration and mining.

Many in the crowd anticipated the minister would give a clear indication of how his ministry would protect the interests of the mining industry from this ill-conceived Lands For Life initiative. However, the minister failed in his duty to promote mining and exploration in Ontario by implying with the tone of his voice and delivery of his speech that this Lands For Life initiative is a done deal with which the mining industry, and all resource-based communities in northern Ontario, will have to live.

Many people living in those northern communities and working in the mining and forestry industries believe there are enough parks and protected lands, and are in favor of a policy of multiple land use. Furthermore, scientifically proven alternative land management plans are in existence in other provinces, and manage to ensure sustainability of the forests, conserve and protect biodiversity, and maintain natural beauty without alienating additional lands. Presentations outlining existing scientifically proven alternative land management plans have fallen on deaf ears at the Lands For Life meetings. It would have been a positive sign to the mining industry from the minister if he was receptive to these alternative proposals.

Currently, there are 272 parks and park reserves within the province of Ontario, but only 71 are seasonally staffed. These parks provide employment for 240 full-time personnel and an additional 2,000 seasonal staff.

Ministry of Natural Resources statistics indicate that the parks bring $170 million into the provincial economy. In contrast, the mining industry employs 22,000 people directly, and an additional 85,000 indirectly across the province. The mining industry in the last ten years has, on average, spent $153 million per year on exploration within the province, and the provincial government receives $1.5 billion in direct tax revenue yearly from mining. Moreover, the mining industry generates an additional $6.6 billion annually in corporate and personal income within the province.

As all of us in the mining industry know, mines are finite and new resources must be found to maintain the status quo. New mineral deposits are located where you find them and only rarely where you would expect them. Access to as much potential land as possible is the basic necessity to the discovery of new resources. I only hope that the people pushing this Lands For Life initiative and the alienation of Crown lands will be as understanding with the government when their taxes go up. This will be inevitable in order to make up for the lost tax revenue from mining as our current mineral reserves are exhausted and mines close.

At one point in our not-too-distant past, a proud and well-respected Tory government realized the significant contributions that natural resources made to the economy and had a policy to build roads to resources for the benefit of us all. Now it would appear as if this provincial Tory government intends to shut down mineral exploration within the province for the benefit of a select few and to the detriment of all, much the same way as the socialist government in British Columbia has so successfully done.

I hope the minister will soon realize that the current Lands For Life initiative is a destructive element to promoting mineral exploration and further investment in Ontario. He should get serious about defending the well-being of the provincial economy and interests of the mining industry in Ontario.

Lorne D. Burden

Consulting Geologist

Peterborough, Ont.