PDAC 2016: Andrew Cheatle shares his upbeat view on the industry

This year’s annual Prospectors & Developers Association of Canada (PDAC) convention, now in its 84^th year, attracted more than 22,000 attendees, including inventors, analysts, mining executives, government officials and students. The attendance for the world’s largest mining event, held at Toronto’s Metro Convention Centre, is slightly down from last year’s 25,000. Despite that, PDAC’s executive director Andrew Cheatle told The Northern Miner the mood of the convention was “more upbeat” in his opinion given there’s a “great sense that we are coming off the bottom of the market.”

The following is an edited transcript of an interview with Cheatle from the four-day convention, which ended March 9.

The Northern Miner: This is your second PDAC as executive director, but how many conventions have you attended throughout your career?

Andrew Cheatle: I came to Canada from South Africa in the year 2000, and ever since then — I think I might have missed one or two — so easily this would be my 15^th PDAC.

TNM: What has been your most memorable experience at a convention?

AC: I would have to say it was last year and I’d been executive director for about four weeks and to be on the inside and to see the doors open and quite literally the flood of people coming down the escalators was extraordinary.

TMN: How has the convention expanded over the years based on your experience as an attendee and now on the inside?

AC: I think PDAC has expanded on many fronts. Quite clearly, we have expanded throughout the years with our Aboriginal affairs program. That has become quite an important event, I think, nationally and increasingly internationally.

We have also seen a massive increase with the trade show and investors exchange, moving from the North building to now both the South and North building. We now have over 1,000 different exhibitors. So, this has been an incredible expansion and throughout that time, I would say the (attendance) numbers have increased from around about 5,000 to now 20,000 to 30,000. So, it has been quite spectacular in that sense. And the other thing is the just the internationalizing of the event. This has now become, quite literally as we do say, the place where the world’s industry meets.

TNM: Are there any specific improvements or additions made this year to the convention?

AC: I just have to say, of course, we are sitting here today on March 8, which is International Women’s Day, and the team that puts on the convention is approximately 15 people and it’s all female. So, it’s a remarkable example of gender diversity. The big addition for us this year was the International Mines Ministers Summit, where we have been able to bring together 16 national mines ministers into one room. We worked with the World Economic Forum to do this, with great support from the government of Canada.

TNM: How would you describe this year’s mood at the convention, compared to last year’s?

AC: I think it is more upbeat. But I think the more important question is how do you find the mood?

TNM: I find it is similar to last year and that people are optimistic, but cautious. But I wanted to know what you think or have heard at the convention.

AC: I have been finding that a lot of people say the mood is more buoyant. There’s no doubt the mineral sector is still under a lot of stress and strain, but I think there is a great sense that we are now coming off the bottom of the market.

TNM: As executive director of PDAC what initiatives are you working on?

AC: We continue with three major fronts. One is access to capital. We are working to ensure our members in the industry continue to have access to capital; so reducing regulatory burdens is something we continue to work on. We also continue to work on changes that are coming to the regulatory markets that will enable crowdfunding and the greater involvement of the Canadian public in shares as they are issued. At the moment, only accredited investors can access that. We continue to work very much on gender diversity and promoting that. This afternoon’s closing CSR (corporate social responsibility) panel is addressing diversity issues. The chair of that panel, Patrice Merrin (a non-executive director at Glencore) is one of the 100 most influential women in mining recognized this year by Women in Mining. We also continue to promote CSR and early stakeholder engagement as ambassadors of the minerals industry. When we go into communities and work with communities for the very first time, it’s first impressions, and they do count.

TNM: What challenges do you think the industry is facing or that we have to overcome to improve our image?

AC: That’s a whole issue of societal acceptance versus societal rejection. There’s no doubt, it has been very encouraging to hear (Canada’s Minister of Natural Resources) Jim Carr in the opening commentary say that this is no longer our grandfathers’ industry. We have advanced greatly in affairs with Aboriginal people; we have advanced greatly in terms of environmental protection. We also have a very strong brand that we continue to work on. Once we are a national organization we will have extraordinary international reach and taking that sort of message of CSR responsibility, community engagement, working with governments and capacity building with other nations and governments are areas we continue to work in.