Martel enumerates Ontario’s mineral assistance programs

Ontario boasts some of the most successful and well received mineral assistance programs in Canada, says the province’s mines minister, Shelley Martel.

The minister, responding to opposition comments in the legislature, referred to the Ontario Prospectors Assistance Program (OPAP), which awards grubstakes of up to $10,000 per year to prospectors, and the Ontario Mineral Incentive Program (OMIP), which provides a 30% or 50% grant for exploration work to a maximum of $300,000 per applicant, depending on the project’s location.

The provincial government also provides a 3-year tax-free holiday to mining companies starting new operations, Martel said.

Martel’s ministry recently metered out more than $1.3 million in funding assistance, including:

— $1.08 million to Laurentian University for the establishment of a research field station at Elliot Lake, part of a Queen’s Park commitment to spend $3 million during the next three years. Research work will cover acid mine drainage, radioactivity, rock support and the application of ultrasonics to rock breaking.

— $158,256 to the Royal Ontario Museum’s Jack Satterly Geochronology Laboratory, which produces the world’s most precise rock age determinations, to fund research into the detailed understanding of the crystalline rocks of the Precambrian Shield.

— $40,000 to the Ontario Mining Association (OMA) to allow the OMA to co-sponsor a study on the industry’s economic contribution to Ontario in terms of wages, equipment supply and employment. This study will be carried out by the firm of Ernst and Young which will also look at taxes paid by industry to the three levels of government. Total cost will be approximately $90,000.

— $7,000 toward the cost of publishing the proceedings of the “Second International Conference on the Abatement of Acid Drainage,” as part of Ontario’s support of MEND (the national Mine Environment Neutral Drainage program).