Successful MDA programface uncertain future

Just as the exploration industry is adjusting to the sudden elimination of the Canadian Exploration Incentives Program (CEIP) earlier this year, another government program designed to stimulate exploration and mining is on shaky ground. The Mineral Development Agreements (MDAs), struck between the federal and provincial governments in 1984-1985, have reached their 5-year expiry dates and will gradually be phased out over the next year. Uncertainty about their renewal, particularly in Ontario and Quebec and the Western provinces, where negotiations are the least advanced, is cause for concern among explorationists. “The inevitable decline in the availability and quality of geological information is viewed with alarm,” says Saley Lawton, researcher for the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada (PDAC).

MDAs are regional development agreements designed “to increase the mineral industry’s contribution to provincial economies.” Over the years, they have provided funding for programs ranging from geological research to improved road access in mineral-rich areas. Funding responsibility is split between the federal and provincial governments.

In Ontario, programs financed by the Canada-Ontario Mineral Development Agreement (COMDA) expired at the end of March. Like others of its kind across Canada, the agreement has provided valuable geoscientific information to the exploration industry.

Of the $30 million allotted to COMDA, $18.4 million was put toward the search for favorable exploration environments. Since its inception in 1985, COMDA has been successful in identifying areas with potential for gold and base metal mineralization, discovering new occurrences of gold mineralization and providing geophysical and geochemical information over large areas.

Another $1.9 million was allotted to an information exchange program designed to improve private sector access to government information files. Since the beginning of the program, several useful summaries of exploration data have been compiled.

“Such initiatives confirm COMDA’s importance in ensuring that Ontario’s mineral industry continues to prosper as one of the mainstays of our economy,” said Ontario’s Mines Minister Hugh O’Neil.

In total, the MDAs are worth $253.5 million, of which 60-70% has been allocated to geological research and mapping. For the provincial surveys with limited funds, the MDAs were especially beneficial.

“The MDAs allowed the less affluent provinces to maintain an active level of geological services,” said Robert Ginn, president of the PDAC. During a period of reduced cash flow, this financing was essential, he added.

There is some hope that the MDAs will be revived across the board. In Newfoundland and Nova Scotia, the federal government has already committed an undisclosed amount of funds to a new program, although the new agreements “may be shorter in length,” says Mike McMullen, senior regional adviser for Energy Mines and Resources.

But in the other provinces, negotiations will not begin until the federal government determines how much will be allocated to regional development as a whole. Only then will the government decide how much, if any, funding will go toward renewal of the MDAs, said Al Clark, director of Regional and Inter-governmental Affairs for Energy, Mines and Resources. Meanwhile, in Ontario, Quebec and the Western provinces, informal discussions have begun, “but we have no idea what the funding will be. We don’t have a mandate for negotiations in those provinces,” said Clark.

For the time being, the geological surveys are feeling the squeeze. At the Ontario Geological Survey, several geologists employed under COMDA have been laid off, and, according to an OGS spokesman there will be a “distinct difference in the amount of work carried out this year.”