THE MOVE TO DECENTRALIZE; Ontario’s southern explorationists are

In July, 1986, Ontario Premier David Peterson announced that the Toronto offices of the Ministry of Northern Development and Mines, with the Ontario Geological Survey (OGS) in tow, was to be boxed and carted north to the nickel town of Sudbury. Long-suffering champions of northern diversification cheered the proclamation. Toronto-based explorationists were ready to weep. Comprising nearly 60% of the OGS’s own client base, the exploration fraternity stood to lose easy access to the mines library and the assessment files, which contain historical data on geophysical, geochemical, geological and diamond drill information on mining prospects right across the province.

In spite of vigorous protests from the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada (PDAC), private consultants and others, northbound ministry people will occupy a new, 7-storey office tower in downtown Sudbury this fall. To follow in a year’s time are the ogs staffers who opt to move into the 242,500-sq.-ft. Sudbury Mines and Minerals Research Centre on the campus of Laurentian University.

In a letter to then mines minister Sean Conway in 1988, John Larche, the PDAC president at the time, said “the removal of the present facilities and personnel of MNDM Mines and Minerals Division to Sudbury will damage the effectiveness and efficiency of Toronto in future development of northern Ontario.” The submission also noted that the majority of the Ontario exploration community, as represented by membership in the PDAC, the Canadian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy and the Geological Association of Canada, were Toronto-based. For example, 62.6% of the 2,473 Ontario members of the PDAC were from the Toronto area. The weight of the evidence aside, reversing the decision was not a battle the explorationists could win. “Quite early on, we as an organization saw it (the MNDM move) as a fait accompli,” says Tony Andrews, managing director of the PDAC. “The relocation decision was entirely based on politics. It was not based on a concern for the delivery of service,” he says.

For the Toronto exploration community, the question of service is now paramount. The functioning of the OGS, for example, will be disrupted by the move. Staffers do not have to declare their intentions until 13 months before the move is actually made in the fall of 1991. But there is no doubt that many OGS people will choose to stay behind. Pdac Managing Director Andrews was himself an OGS geologist who decided to leave the agency soon after the move was proposed. “It wasn’t entirely a result of the relocation that made me decide to change,” he says. “I was already looking for a change. But the announcement of the relocation was a deciding factor.”

Deputy Minister Brock Smith admits the move will cause problems, both personally for those who have a tough decision to make and operationally for the OGS. “These days people are not as willing to move. It (the move) is creating personal difficulties.” And while he hopes service will not be disrupted, “realistically, sure there are going to be some bumpy periods.”

How many OGS staffers and contract personnel will opt for Sudbury is not known. But out of the ministry’s 81 non-OGS full-time staff people who are to go north this fall to occupy the ministry’s downtown building, only 34 are packing for Sudbury. That represents 41% of the full-time staff, according to Marcia Green, director of the Sudbury Relocation Project. Another 70 workers, mostly contract personnel, had no choice or were hired knowing that they would eventually go to Sudbury. If the OGS experience is similar, more than half its full-time staff will seek transfers to other ministries, federal government agencies or the private sector. There will also be disruptions in service from the loss of temporary people whose contracts will soon expire. The OGS’s Pre-Cambrian section alone had better than 30 employees a year ago. Of those, 10 are gone.

Andrews says he has no quarrel with the broader issue of establishing a mining centre of excellence in Sudbury, but adds that Toronto already is an exploration centre of excellence. “Why dismantle it? At the very least, the OGS could have been left here (in Toronto).” He pointed out that government exploration offices were set up in both Vancouver and Montreal, after both provinces initially had established such centres in the provincial capitals of Victoria and Quebec City. “That’s where the action is in those provinces,” Andrews notes. While actual exploration occurs in the northland, corporate headquarters and capital markets are in the south.

The key item in the Ontario squabble is the Geoscience Information Services department with its mines library and assessment files. Says Patrick Chance, a senior geologist with Rio Algom: “The assessment files are the heart of it.” Ideally, the files should remain in Toronto, until some form of “digitizing” is available to store and dismantle the information electronically, he says. Lynn Moxham, a private mining consultant, says transferring the data north would “remove me from an important information source.”

At this point, the ministry’s plans for the mines library and assessment files are still a bit fuzzy. Such options as electronic storage and retrieval and simple physical duplication have been tabled and a pilot project to digitize is underway, but no decision has been made on the timing of a wholesale switch to an electronic data base. Andrews considers the electronic option a strictly long-term one. Digitizing is time-consuming and expensive. It simply couldn’t be up and running in time, he says. “So we have to have hard copy in Toronto. We simply must.” Alastar Currie, the ministry’s Geoscience Data Centre manager, disagrees. “Basically, it’s do-able. It’s just a big shovel job. We have a million-plus pages of paper and 100,000-plus maps. If we got moving now (to scan and electronically record the data), we could do it,” he tells The Northern Miner Magazine. That doesn’t cheer southern explorationists: Technological capabilities are one thing, nursing such projects through the government approval process could be quite another.

The question of service aside, this was a savvy political move. (The financial implications — whether the relocation money might have been more wisely spent improving and expanding services — are another question entirely.) Back in 1987, Peterson’s Liberals were new at governing, only recently having wrested power from the 4-decade-long grip of the Progressive Conservatives. The new Northern Ontario Relocation Program, including not only the mines move but also dispersion of branches and divisions of other ministries, demonstrated the Liberal government’s northern commitment. Constructing six new buildings alone would sprinkle at least $198 million in capital costs across the north. The five cities — North Bay, Sault Ste. Marie, Sudbury, Thunder Bay and Timmins — would also divvy up a $65-million annual payroll.

In the longer term, it might prove even more fruitful, especially the wholesale move of Northern Development and Mines to Sudbury. Finally, a ministerial seat of power would be situated in the north. And the city could eventually become the centre of gravity for mine exploration and development in the province. That prospect might not appeal to explorationists from the south. But can you fault the prosperity-minded civic leaders of Sudbury for their crocodile tears?