HANSARD
Printed and Published by Nova Scotia Hansard Reporting Services
Mr. Sid Prest (Chairman)
Mr. Howard Epstein
Mr. Jim Boudreau
Mr. Gary Burrill
Mr. Jim Morton
Mr. Leo Glavine
Mr. Andrew Younger
Mr. Alfie MacLeod
Mr. Chuck Porter
[Ms. Becky Kent replaced Mr. Jim Boudreau]
[Mr. David Wilson replaced Mr. Jim Morton]
In Attendance:
Ms. Jana Hodgson
Legislative Committee Clerk
WITNESSES
Mining Association of Nova Scotia
Ms. Michelle Landreville, Executive Director
Mr. Peter Oram, Past President
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HALIFAX, THURSDAY, JUNE 17, 2010
STANDING COMMITTEE ON RESOURCES
9:00 A.M.
CHAIRMAN
Mr. Sid Prest
MR. CHAIRMAN: Good morning, everyone, and welcome to our committee meeting today. It's just about time that we get started.
There may be another one or two members coming, but they're running a little late. We will have the Mining Association of Nova Scotia presenting some information for us today. Maybe they'll leave some gold with us. Who knows? Anyway, if we can have the introductions.
[The committee members and witnesses introduced themselves.]
MR. CHAIRMAN: We will have the witnesses give us a presentation on the activity of the association. Then we will have questions after your presentation, and then the opportunity to give us a closing statement at the end. You may start your presentation.
MS. MICHELLE LANDREVILLE: Thank you very much. First, thank you to everyone for allowing us the opportunity to present to the committee. I know that this is a very important committee and a really good opportunity for us to bring who we are and what the industry looks like and some of the issues we're dealing with to the foreground.
I would like to pass on regrets for Paul Smith, who is our current president. Regrettably, he had some business matters that needed to be attended to, and so he wasn't able to be here with us this morning.
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The Mining Association of Nova Scotia is about three years old, and in the last number of years we have done presentations to the various caucuses. What we wanted to do today was not necessarily concentrate on mining as an activity but talk a little bit more about the industry more generally, and perhaps some of the issues that are of importance today. Obviously we're looking forward to the question and answer period where we can perhaps dive into some of these issues to a much greater extent.
I'm going to start with who we are, and I believe the handout has been circulated so you'll have some notes in front of you. The association, as I said, is about three years old, and what we do is we represent individuals and companies that are involved in all mining areas in the province. For us, that takes us through from exploration, discovery, development, production, and reclamation. Our association also has a number of consultants and suppliers involved in it.
We really do represent everything, literally from the prospector who's got boots, a hammer, and a truck and goes out and looks for gold in the hills, right through to the consultants who help move projects, and the equipment operators that help move projects forward. We are run by a volunteer board, like many other organizations, and we are staffed. Our offices are in Bedford.
In the last six or eight months we've revamped our strategic plan and one of the things that we're looking at now in terms of focusing the association is some work around infrastructure, relationship building, and education. Those are three of our main goals, and so for us this is a fabulous opportunity to engage in some conversations to help educate people in what the industry looks like. That's a bit about who we are.
In terms of the role that we play, what we really do envision the organization being is an association that people can come to if they want to bounce ideas off people in the industry, if they want to talk about various projects, that kind of thing. We don't necessarily promote any one particular project. We tend to be more broadly focused than that, but we have worked and continue to work with various government departments and other stakeholders to help people understand what we look like.
One of the things I will say is that we are heavily engaged - and we'll talk about it a little more when we get into the issues, in helping the province meet the goals that they have set for environmental stewardship. We also think it's important to make sure that we continue to balance that with the economic development component, particularly the EGSPA.
We do some advocating on behalf of members and the industry. We meet and continue to meet with all levels of government - federal, provincial, municipal, obviously. We have participated and continue to participate in a number of consultation processes. Right now we're working on the coastal management strategy that they're hoping to unveil
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sometime in the Fall, I think. We were really heavily involved, as you can all imagine, in the Natural Resources Strategy 2010, of which the Phase II report has just been released.
Part of making sure we can be involved in those consultative processes has allowed us the opportunity to work on building strategic partnerships with other stakeholders. I would say at this point that not only what I would consider people would think to be traditional stakeholders that we would want to partner with, but sometimes non-traditional stakeholders. We have, over the last number of years, spent quite a bit of time working with the environmental community to work on a number of different things. We've done conferences with some of them, we've been at tables negotiating for some of the protected lands with some of them, and that kind of thing.
What we're really trying to do as an organization is to be a lot more proactive and engaged. So what we've discovered in the last number of years is that if we can have conversations with some of these other environmental groups and the like, that the conversations around the table were a lot easier when we come to issues that matter.
What we tell people in terms of the association is, we like to be the one phone call you make if you've got a question about mining. While I can't profess that in the office or the people who sit around our board table necessarily know everything there is to know in the province on the issue, we certainly have a network of people who we're able to consult, so if we don't know the answer right off the bat when you ask, then it's pretty easy for us to just talk to a number of people and get a sense of it. So that is the association.
I'm just going to take a couple of minutes and talk a little bit about the industry itself, at both the national and provincial levels, and then some of the trends we're seeing in the industry. Then I will turn it over to Peter, who will talk about some of the issues as identified on the handout.
Canada-wide, the mining industry contributes about $42 billion to the GDP of the country and employs some 363,000 people. In Nova Scotia our contribution is about $0.5 billion to the GDP of the province and that runs us about 0.6 per cent of the entire package. In some jurisdictions in Nova Scotia it is a little bit different, but in some jurisdictions the mining industry is often put together with oil and gas, in terms of talking about numbers. In this province if you put mining together with oil and gas extraction, that sort of mining development sector, resource sector, is actually bigger than all of the other resource sectors combined.
In terms of numbers of people that we employ in the province, we are about 6,300. In terms of mineral production in Nova Scotia, the most current stats we have are 2008, and we were sitting at about $340 million for the mineral production in the province. In terms of capital expenditures in the industry - mostly in terms of resource development is where you concentrate these numbers, so you look at things like exploration, appraisals of deposits, that
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kind of thing. For capital expenditures in the province we're looking at about $30 million. That gives you a sense of the numbers, in terms of money that is around the industry, again at both the national and provincial levels.
I'm going to talk a little bit about the safety record only because it is one of the things that we battle a lot. There are a number of people who perhaps don't have current stats, in terms of safety records, and think that it is an industry that doesn't do well in this area. Actually, in Nova Scotia in 2008 - which again is the most recent stats - we had 36 time-lost claims in the industry, which represents about 1.8 per cent of the overall total for the safety record. Not that we like to pick on other industries, but if you compare that to fishing and trapping, fishing and trapping sit at about 4.3 per cent, agriculture sits at about 3.3 per cent, and logging and forestry sits at about 4 per cent so in terms of the industry, we often feel like we get a bit of a bad rap in terms of safety because we do have companies that have zero time-lost claims. It's obviously something, particularly for producers, that's absolutely critically important to them when they're developing their projects.
A couple of other quick things in terms of what the industry looks like in Nova Scotia. I don't think it would be a surprise to anybody around the table that most of what happens is done in rural areas so we do consider ourselves a driver for the economics in rural areas. The one piece, in terms of that, that I think is often forgotten - and we continue as an organization to be challenged with how this gets represented - but because most of the work, particularly in the exploration stages is done in the rural areas, it means that you've got teams of people at this time of year who are out staying in hotels, having meals, getting out into the wilderness and trying to uncover new discoveries.
There is a component of what we do that actually gets counted in the tourism numbers so we say that we are an economic driver in terms of some of the stuff that happens on the ground in the rural communities, but in terms of tourism we also play - I would suggest a significant portion of that can also be attributed to the industry because it's very uncommon for things to be locally set, and you have teams of people who are out in the fields through the course of the summer. We have met with the tourism industry and we continue to talk about how we can make that so that it's a little bit more reasonable in terms of numbers, but it is a challenge for us.
One of the really interesting things about the footprint, because again, this is something else that we hear a lot about much like the safety record - we've battled the business about we have this ginormous footprint in the province. You see these huge pits, particularly if you fly around, you see a lot of stuff that people might point at and say, oh my God, that's really big. We spent quite a bit of time and we worked quite closely, actually, with some of the people at the Department of Natural Resources just over the last, probably about eight months and trying to establish what our footprint is in the province. How much space do we actually occupy? What does it mean in terms of the overall land mass and that kind of thing?
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We did two sets of studies. The first was we looked at footprint in terms of what's historical, so from the time that people landed in Annapolis Royal - because obviously mining has had a long history in Nova Scotia - to what's going on today. When we looked at that overall number, including everything that has been and then everything that is currently a mine, our footprint is actually 0.1 per cent of the land mass of the province. For many around the boardroom table - and certainly a lot of our members - I think they were a little bit surprised by the number because, again, you hear about it a lot and so you sort of think it must be huge so that's kind of where we're at.
[9:15 a.m.]
Then, because it was fun, we decided we'd like to compare it to something else that would make some sense that might stick with people. We decided what we would do is once we had that number and we looked at what was current in terms of mining operations, we then decided to compare it to what the golf courses were in Nova Scotia. We can confidently say - after some quick math and some happy calculations - that in terms of current mining projects in Nova Scotia, we actually occupy less space than the golf courses in the province. That's a number that when we meet with people really resonates because everybody knows what the golf course is. For us, it was a fun little piece that we worked on in the last while.
I would tell you that we do, in terms of mining, talk about reclamation, that is one of the parts of the industry that is very important. In 2009 there were 103 abandoned mine sites that were actually reclaimed. That's a significant amount of work that's being done in places that have been left and are now being put into more useful uses.
I think, in terms of the industry, I'll refresh people's memories in terms of what we have in the province in terms of minerals. We are currently producing gypsum, salt, oil, coal, natural gas; limestone and peat are currently being mined. Nova Scotia is also really quite rich with gold, lead, zinc and potash, so those are opportunities that are still available for anybody who would be interested in that.
Just to address any questions there may be in terms of what has happened in the last little bit with the economic downturn, none of our producers, with the exception of the lead/zinc mine, have shut down because of the downward cycle of the industry. Many, obviously, like the gypsum have been scaled back significantly, but that's it.
So just really quickly on trends before passing it over to my colleague. The Fraser Institute does a lot of work on mining and released a report just recently, actually, that had all kinds of information in it. I would encourage you, if you're interested, to take a look at it because it is quite an extensive report. The piece that stuck with us was they are currently predicting a dramatic decrease in investments within the industry. They're thinking that exploration and development activities are going to be curtailed in some manner over the next one to three years.
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The only reason I raise that, is that it does raise some concerns in terms of shortages of raw materials. You have to remember when you're looking at taking something from the exploration phase on through to the actual production phase and getting things out, that's a five to 10-year span. So if we're going to see some curtailing and activities on the exploration component of it, then that is going to affect us as we move forward. That's where the trend is feeling right now, so it's something that does concern us, particularly with raw materials and, obviously, that then has a direct impact on skyrocketing commodity prices.
In Nova Scotia, just in terms of up and coming - and I'm not going to waste a lot of time because I know this stuff has been in the papers a lot - projects that we foresee happening in the next, probably, six months to 18 months coming on stream, would be the Donkin subsea coal development up in Cape Breton; Moose River which is a gold mine - they're looking at a Fall construction date so they will be up and operational, we're hoping, in 2010 at this point. Then Gays River, which is the lead/zinc mine which closed down because of dropping prices, they're about a six-month turnkey to get them up and operational again. I think the plan at this point is probably to look at that in the next year. So that's where some of the new projects that we might see in the industry over the next year to year and a half will start. So with that, I'll turn it over to Peter. Again, you have the handouts and the issues are on that, but Peter will take you a little bit more in-depth.
MR. PETER ORAM: Good morning, everyone. What I will take you through are the issues that we're dealing with as an association on behalf of the industry. So these are issues that our members have come forward and said, these are important for us to focus on over the next little while. Generally our members are interested in - those who are in production are interested in staying in production; those who aren't in production are interested in getting into production. So the theme with the members is to stick around and be part of Nova Scotia, be part of the economy, and to continue to grow.
Most of our members are strong proponents of being in the province. There are some that are owned elsewhere but our local content is extremely high, and the line is that we want to export the products and not the people. Nova Scotia has a rich mining history. We've been a place where many people have gained experience in mining and then applied that experience elsewhere to the benefit of others. We would like to see - we do see a slow reversal in that over the last little while with people who are perhaps a little more senior in their careers. They would like to come back to Nova Scotia for the last five to 10 years, get themselves re-established and settled, because they know that eventually they and their family - the family wants to visit and they want to live here. So we are seeing a trend in, certainly, senior people wanting to come back and to engage in the mining industry. It's a good trend.
One of the themes with our members is that they feel like the playing field is not quite level when it comes to legislation. We believe that land disturbance is land disturbance, regardless of whether it's for a school, an orphanage, a gypsum mine, or a shopping centre.
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Bayers Lake is larger than most of the gypsum mines combined, but we view that very differently, and highway projects, if we combine them together, are larger than most of the gypsum mines, but we view that differently.
One of the issues that we're dealing with in Nova Scotia is the idea that we have a compressed land base and a fairly large number of competing interests in that, and when it comes to land disturbance we really feel like everything should be treated equally, but it is currently not through the legislation. It's something we work on quite a bit.
I want as well to just highlight some of the key things we're working on, and I'll give you some information on the background for each of them. As Michelle explained, the process of getting to opening day with a mine begins with exploring. The phases you go through are: exploration, often called "grassroots," which is boot and hammer and literally going through the woods with a backpack and a hammer and poking on rocks and things like that - that's often called grassroots exploration; the next phase is advanced exploration which may involve some trenching or drilling, a little more intrusive, a little more active; then you go into a pre-feasibility stage which is, well, perhaps we have a deposit, perhaps things look good, let's look at the numbers, and if the pre-feasibility says that in fact, yes, things look good, you often go into a feasibility stage which is more drilling, look at our numbers a little more closely, start the environmental permitting, the environmental baseline work, begin the public consultation to a much greater degree through that feasibility stage; and if all that works and prices remain stable through that, then you likely go into production and then you go into the reclamation and decommissioning phase.
The key in all of that is to be able to have access to land, to be able to explore and to be able to identify resources that are in the province that may be extractable for everybody's benefit. Royalties don't go to the province until there's production, so it's important to have production. The stimulus - we've met with the current Premier once, and we've certainly had an audience with Department of Natural Resources over the last little while to talk about things that will assist the mineral industry.
One of the issues we're dealing with is an overall stimulus program. Some of the key components to that are to, because of the economic downturn, get some relief on the royalty and gypsum tax for a period of time. Fuel tax rebate is another thing that is quite a large issue for us - a large number of the vehicles you use on a mine site, they arrived by road but they're never going to see a road again. Excavators are a little hard on highways and 50-ton mine trucks are a little hard on the highways, and they don't have turn signals, so a lot of the vehicles that are used never see the highway again, but yet the fuel tax applies to them.
Other industries such as forestry, fishing, and agriculture to some extent, the fuel tax is not applied to their activities, so we're the only industry in the province, and this is one of the only provinces in fact that applies the fuel tax to the use of off-road vehicles on mining and exploration projects. It's something that would provide somewhere in the order of $14
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to $20 million worth of extra money for our industry if we were to get some relief on that, which is significant. That's double the amount of exploration that's done every year. If you do twice the number of exploration projects, you're likely to find twice the number of mines and there would be more production.
The incentive program that we've looked at as well - most other provinces, there is a federal program which provides you with some tax benefit for exploration, and Nova Scotia is the only province that doesn't have what is known as - that program is known as "flow-through." We're the only province that doesn't have an additional provincial program on top of that, so that's often known as "super flow-through." Essentially, the more dollars you spend, the more relief you get, and you can leverage that to spend more money on exploration. So we are the only province in Canada that does not have a provincial program. We also are the only province - no, I won't go there, never mind. We are the only province that doesn't have a super flow-through program. Remember that key point.
Historically the Department of Natural Resources did a very good job at training prospectors. There was an excellent program that assisted prospectors in some basic training on how to get an exploration licence, how to do assessment reports, and things like that. We've spent quite a bit of time with DNR discussing that there's a strong need for that program to get resurrected. Now the new natural resources strategy does have some hope and some things identified in that, so we're hopeful, but once again, it's the start of the process. If there are more prospectors, there is more prospecting; if there's more prospecting, it's going to eventually lead to more mines and more production.
Our Premier suggested publicly that he would entertain and implement ideas that cost the government nothing yet provided benefit for the province, so we believe that the super flow-through plan is one that meets those criteria. It costs nothing to put it in place, it will stimulate additional exploration, additional exploration dollars are spent in rural areas, and it will lead to more mines and more production, which will help with royalties and taxes and payrolls. We think that qualifies as one of the programs that you would be interested in.
Natural resources strategy is a process and an issue that we're heavily involved in. We've been very involved through Phases I and II in that. We want to and have had good audience with the Department of Natural Resources to be part of the development of that strategy itself. It is quite important that our members historically were not engaged publicly enough. We in this province have the benefit of a history of public consultation and public engagement. The Mi'kmaq did a good job at showing us how that should be done, and we continue to do that. Our members were historically not engaged as much as they should have been, but over the last two to three years, you'll actually see people at public meetings say something about, well, if we take those thousand acres and if we protect them in perpetuity, what about the fact that there used to be a gold mine there, what about the fact that there might be other resources there, shouldn't we look at that first?
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[9:30 a.m.]
We are slowly getting mobilized and getting some members actively involved in public consultation. The natural resources strategy was one where we had a fair amount of good input there. The Mineral Act will likely need some revamping as part of that, if the natural resources strategy - if everything gets implemented - so we'll be actively involved in that and interested and engaged.
On EGSPA, we like to remind everybody that there is an S part of that in there, and that has an economic component as well as environmental. We've been heavily engaged in and have publicly supported the 12 per cent goal over and over again. We firmly believe that that's right for the province, it's right for all Nova Scotians, it's the right thing to do. What we've been saying all the way along is, we want to make sure that it's the right 12 per cent and we want to make sure that we all understand the math as well.
We've been quite engaged and involved in making sure that we have the whole story when pieces of land are evaluated. It's equally important to find out whether there are mineral resources there as well as lichen resources, as well as recreational resources, as well as cultural - Mi'kmaq and otherwise. Before a piece of land is put aside, we need to make sure that we fully understand all of the components of that. We owe that to ourselves. We owe it to everybody. We've been heavily involved in making sure that each of those pieces of land that are evaluated through the designation of a candidate area and then through to the final designation - that the mineral resources are evaluated, in that it's an important piece of the puzzle.
We've publicly supported the designation of Ship Harbour Long Lake. We were heavily involved in some tweaking of the final boundaries. There were a number of significant historic gold-mining areas that were within the original proposed and ones where there was a significant amount of potential for those. At $1,200 an ounce, there are some roads in Nova Scotia that are now economic, literally, if they were to be taken up. Our good chairman here probably knows a few of them on the Eastern Shore. What used to be waste rock is now ore.
Blue Mountain was one of the designated areas that we were heavily involved in as well - strongly in favour of that one. Shelburne River, we're heavily involved and a strong proponent of that one. In situations where there are no mineral resources or very limited, where there is no future potential for some wildcard mineral or element to be there and potentially to help Nova Scotia, we support the designations. In some areas where we've systematically gone through and looked at things, even though there are mineral resources there, we still have supported some of the areas where we believe it to be a net benefit to go ahead with that. We're not obstructionists. We like science; we like the facts. We think if you're not examining the mineral resources then you're not really doing a good job at examining these areas before they're designated, so we'll continue to be involved in that.
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Through being involved in the EGSPA goals, we have put forward the idea that if an area can be designated based on ecological resources, then an area could be designated based on economic resources. There is no reason why an area that has all kinds of historic gold operations in it, has a whole bunch of potential, or has actual reserves and resources that are drilled off - there is no reason why an area couldn't be designated for mining. There are other provinces that take this approach, Quebec being one of them, where if you have an area that has very limited ecological resources and has very high mineral potential, then you're designated as an area from where you're going to extract minerals. It's an idea, a concept that's used elsewhere, and it's something that we'll probably spend quite a bit of time on over the next little while.
Once again, if everybody knows the facts and if there is a 50-acre chunk of land somewhere that can provide $20 million in royalties to the province and 500 jobs, we need to look at that just as closely as we look at somewhere that has other resources.
Another issue we deal with quite a bit on behalf of members is zoning. We have in this province a number of layers of authority relative to land-use planning, which is most often to the benefit of the citizens of the province, but in some cases I think it's way too cumbersome, difficult to understand, and - this is a consultant speaking - provides way too much money to lawyers and consultants and not enough money left over at the end of the day to actually do some of these developments. By the time you spend three years working your way through, whether you can do something on a chunk of land, perhaps half of the value, the capital that might have been available for that project is already gone. That's why we end up with ugly buildings.
So we deal with zoning quite a bit. We believe, as an industry, that the larger the role the province takes in things, the better off things will be, particularly when it comes to helping to level the playing field for companies that are coming from elsewhere. It seems a little bizarre that you're coming to Nova Scotia, but yet, the way that mineral resources might get treated in Shelburne County is different than in Cape Breton County and other locations.
Access is another key thing that we spend quite a bit of time on on behalf of members - land access. We have a good system in this province in terms of the way the legislation is written to allow exploration companies to get on land. There is a requirement to consult with the landowner which, I think, is a good thing but we often have situations where access to land may not be as smooth as it could be. So there are some land access related difficulties we deal with quite a bit and we will continue to help out with.
The environmental assessment process is another thing that I've personally been involved in for 20 years. I've helped several companies go through the permitting process and we continue to be involved in that. We continue to believe that we need to level the playing field. Nova Scotia Environment has done, over the last little while, a good job at changes in legislation to reflect changes in the types of projects that we're doing here. So I
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commend them. DNR was involved in helping with this as well, and we do have a process in Nova Scotia that has heavy public engagement, is strong on the science, and we are moving towards something that the mining industry is able to live with. We just need the playing field level when it comes to land disturbance. Yes, closing statement, I'm not closing, okay, I'm concluding. Thank you.
MR. CHAIRMAN: We'll open the floor for questions now and if we could keep the first round of questions to somewhere around 10 minutes and then everybody can have a chance to proceed. We'll start with Mr. Younger.
The honourable member for Dartmouth East.
MR. ANDREW YOUNGER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for being here. I guess I'll start with something you brought up which was the Fraser Institute report. Now, I don't always follow everything the Fraser Institute, or rely on, everything they say but their mining survey is actually fairly well recognized because it's a survey of 670 mining companies around the world and they just really are looking at the feelings of mining companies. One of the things that struck me when I looked at it was that Nova Scotia ranked seventh out of all the provinces in Canada. In fact, places that in some respects sometimes have harsher environmental regulations and everything, especially around mining, actually rank as more attractive places to operate in Canada than Nova Scotia does. In fact, it's only the Provinces of Ontario and British Columbia that are behind Nova Scotia. So what is the impact of that - I mean that has come up every year I guess - on the industry and the willingness to invest in Nova Scotia?
MR. ORAM: The primary impact is people in Switzerland, New Zealand, or elsewhere, might be interested in coming here because of the geology and access to port. We're very close to water everywhere, so if you sit there in your office somewhere else on the planet and you're looking at places to invest, you do have large gypsum resources, you've got good mineral potential and other things. You've got access to water. You're close to the American markets. There are a number of things that make Nova Scotia very attractive on a world scale, but then if they read the Fraser Institute Report they do start thinking about that, and it's like, maybe that's a place that's a little more difficult than others. If we're going to take our money and put it somewhere, perhaps that's not the place. Unfortunately, you also layer on the fact that there's no provincial super flow-through program on top of that, and somebody from somewhere else can take the same amount of money and probably get double the bang for their buck elsewhere in Canada.
Nova Scotia has always been a place where outside investment has been very project- specific, though. They'll look at specific projects and figure out whether it's - excuse the term - worth the hassle, so it does affect things.
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MR. YOUNGER: That's one of the things I wanted to follow up on because you talked about people wanting to stay here and the number of homegrown mining companies, yet of course, some of the ones I'm more familiar - in fact, arguably one of the most socially-conscious mining companies in Nova Scotia, Etruscan Resources, is now not a Nova Scotia company, but has left Nova Scotia. Well, I guess they were bought out by a U.K. company, so they're rolled up there now.
I have spoken to a number of people - actually, a couple of my neighbours who were in the mining business - who have now not only left Nova Scotia but left Canada. I didn't quite catch whether you were seeing a stability in the number of mining professionals in Nova Scotia, or whether you were seeing them leave for greener pastures.
MR. ORAM: Over the last three years it's a net out, for sure, particularly people involved in exploration, because the exploration budgets in other parts of the planet are much larger. So if you're involved in looking for something, you're likely to have gone elsewhere. If you're involved in the production side of things, then potentially you've migrated back here, but there has been a net out, especially on the exploration side of things.
MR. YOUNGER: It strikes me, and please correct me if I'm wrong, but one of the challenges - and I've mentioned this to Michelle before - that the mining industry seems to have in Nova Scotia is they tend to be tarred with the reputation of the lowest common denominator, not only in Nova Scotia but worldwide. I've had the opportunity to be in mines not only across Nova Scotia but around the world, in South America and so forth. I'm not sure that the average mine in Nova Scotia is well represented by a mine in - let's say, one that I've been to in Columbia. What do you think the impact of that reputation is on getting a new Mineral Act or developing more acceptance to mining in Nova Scotia?
MS. LANDREVILLE: I think a couple of things. I think the first thing is that there is a willingness - and I will profess right off the top, I'm not a native Nova Scotian, but I love it here - for Nova Scotians to always come home. That seems to be a trend that we see. One of the things that I think is really exciting over the next little while is, some of the companies that are looking at developing and producing over the next short while have actually made pitches in their proposals to be able to bring some of the ex-pats home.
[9:45 a.m.]
There are a lot of people from Nova Scotia involved with the mining industry worldwide, but there are also tons of them who want to come home. I think that for the smart companies that are looking at moving forward, those are the people that they want to go get. I know Donkin and Moose River both have marketing components in their plans, for sure - advertising components to bring those people back to where they belong. So I think that's the first piece.
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I think if you go back to the Fraser Institute and our ranking, one of the things that makes us rank so low consistently is that we don't have a mineral incentive program. I think we're the only province in Canada that doesn't have that. We have members of our organization and there are members of the mining community in Nova Scotia, who if they're going to spend a dollar to do something, in Nova Scotia it's only worth a buck, but if they go to New Brunswick, it's worth like $7. If they go to Newfoundland and Labrador, it's worth like $10. So it puts us at a very unfair competitive disadvantage because your money is what your money is. Not having a mineral incentive program, particularly in Atlantic Canada, really does put us at a disadvantage.
For us, part of addressing some of those pieces is working with proponents for them to understand that there is a community of people who want to come home and are perfectly happy to come home. Then the other part of it is working with government to make them understand that you need to do something to make it attractive. It's a competitive world. We are really rich with resources, and we just have to make sure that we've got the right playing field for everybody to want to be in.
MR. YOUNGER: I think we all - it doesn't matter what side of the aisle you're on, you understand that the province isn't in the best financial shape. Yet I did notice that when you look at the average wages in the mineral industry, in terms of natural resources - an average of about $1,000 gross a week in that industry - it's the highest in the natural resources in Nova Scotia. So do you feel that if there was a return to - we had a Prospector's Assistance Program in Nova Scotia in 2002. Do you feel that that kind of incentive program, or a similar one, would actually see a net return to the province?
MS. LANDREVILLE: Yes. I think our take on it is absolutely yes.
MR. YOUNGER: You've mentioned Donkin, and I think we're all interested to see where that goes and we're also aware of the challenges that Nova Scotia's coal presents in terms of its marketability, and you mentioned gold - I think we've all watched the Moose River one in the paper the past couple of days.
MR. ORAM: Tangier.
MR. YOUNGER: That was Tangier, right, sorry. Gold is interesting at the moment because of the announced price of gold. I think we all wish we had bought gold a few years ago. I'm wondering, what do you see as the biggest growth potential from minerals in Nova Scotia? I mean, I often hear a lot of people talking about rare earth minerals, in Cumberland County for example, but I also hear people talking about tin and similar ones.
MR. ORAM: Gold, gold, gold, gold, gold - you know, we have all of those historic gold mining districts that can be returned to and likely mined at a profit. So I think Nova Scotia is looked at internationally primarily on the gold side of things - gold and gypsum.
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Gypsum right now is so tied to the construction industry in the U.S., and it's a lower-value product anyway. You've got to get a lot of it out of the ground and be pretty close to a port to make any money at it, but I think you're going to see gold, gold, gold. We haven't touched on uranium, you know - not asking to go there right now, but it's another high-value situation as well, but gold - I think gold is going to be king over the next little while.
MR. YOUNGER: You brought up uranium, so let me just ask you a quick question about uranium. (Interruption) No, I'm not going to ask you about uranium mining directly, because we all supported, and my understanding is that mining associations supported or at least didn't oppose the move from what was effectively regulation to legislation, but I'm not sure, I think it was fairly meaningless, personally. It had the same effect, but in terms of the rare earth minerals - which obviously are required to build the wind turbines we're trying to do here, the hybrid cars, the BlackBerrys that we're all carrying around - the rare earth minerals are found in locations with high concentrations of uranium. So has that effectively put a hold on exploration for rare earth minerals?
MR. ORAM: No, because there are other deposit models that don't have any uranium linkage - lithium, spodumene - there are some other things that don't necessarily have a linkage. The geological regime, you know, South Mountain, that area, Windsor, Hantsport - there are certain places in the province where there's more interest in rare earths. Cape Breton has some of them as well. So they're not necessarily linked together.
MR. YOUNGER: That's good to hear. I think, can I get one question in then?
MR. CHAIRMAN: Yes.
MR. YOUNGER: All right, I'll get my last question in, and then he's going to pull the hook. You mentioned gold. I was just wondering, do you feel that the EA process is fair to both residents and citizens, but also to the mining industry, in terms of if I was going to walk in today and apply for a gold mine?
MR. ORAM: I do. You had mentioned things that have made it more difficult or less difficult for people to invest. One of the interesting things with permitting is that in Nova Scotia there is a big public component to it. We probably spend 80 per cent of the time in discussions during public consultation about mining issues that have nothing to do with the actual mine that we're trying to permit. It's related to tailings issues in South America. It's related to labour issues or Aboriginal peoples' issues in Columbia. We spend about 80 per cent of our total effort talking about all kinds of other mines all over the planet and about 20 per cent of the time in public consultation actually talking about the project that we're trying to do. One of the struggles through permitting is spending all that time on those other issues and unfortunately it detracts away from the project that you're really trying to talk about.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Epstein.
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MR. HOWARD EPSTEIN: Thank you to our witnesses, it was a really interesting presentation. I wonder if I could start by just clarifying one or two small things that you mentioned in passing. I wonder first about the footprint figure that you gave. It wasn't clear to me whether pits and quarries were included in this. I'm not sure how they relate to your association, whether operators of aggregate extraction facilities are members of the association and whether you treat them as part of that and whether that was reflected in your figure.
MR. ORAM: It is in the figure. It's all disruption related to mineral and aggregate production, historic and current. The way that they fit into the picture - there is the Mineral Resources Act, which covers - we have a very obscure definition of what a mineral is. Gypsum CaSO4, calcium sulphate is not a mineral in Nova Scotia. The way the aggregate producers and the mineral producers come together is based on common issues such as land disturbance, EA, sediment and erosion control issues, public consultations. We come together where we have overlap issues, but then there is the Nova Scotia Road Builders Association, which is more for the aggregate producers, crushed stone, et cetera. We have a really good relationship with them, we work together, there are many people that have memberships in both organizations but at the end of the day we are regulated quite differently.
MR. EPSTEIN: When you listed all the active areas of extraction I didn't hear aggregates mentioned.
MR. ORAM: As an example, many of the scars on the landscape that are mentioned have nothing to do with mining, there were no minerals produced from that. You drive by the airport and see that interesting little gouge there, that was aggregate for the airport and for the highway project. Many of the things related to aggregate production have nothing to do with mining.
MR. EPSTEIN: The dollar figures that you used also, they wouldn't extend to aggregates?
MR. ORAM: No.
MR. EPSTEIN: That would be on top of that, that's fine. What about the people who are engaged in geothermal? I know there's not a lot of it but I think, for example, in Springhill where there has been some development of an industrial park based on heating and cooling that's geothermal, I wondered if this is regarded as something that your association takes an interest in. Do you have numbers that are engaged in . . .
MR. ORAM: Interest, but no members because they're often associated with - the reason Springhill works so well is that there's the natural geothermal gradient but then there are old mines, which help. Sulphur when it goes from sulphide to sulphate or something is
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exothermic and creates heat so if you have lots of sulphur kicking around - and you do at coal mines- then you get extra geothermal gradient. That's why Springhill, Sydney, New Waterford - there are a number of areas where if you're into geothermal then going to abandoned coal mines probably is going to get you more bang for your buck going there.
MR. EPSTEIN: As long as I'm asking about geothermal, are you aware of places where there is active consideration? Is that what you meant in passing with those?
MR. ORAM: Yes, certainly. The whole Sydney coal field is part of Devco and ECBC's work they're doing, that's one of the key things, what they would like their legacy to be in that there's still some benefit to be had. There are two or three geothermal pilot projects now going on, maybe one with the Marconi Centre, I think, is going to be hooked up, Glace Bay Hospital potentially. There are a few pilot projects now where they're using water from the former coal mines.
MR. EPSTEIN: Very interesting, thank you. Just going back to clarification, I want to ask about this statement that there were 103 abandoned mine sites that were reclaimed in 2009. I'm wondering if you could just tell me a bit more about what reclamation means? I'm particularly interested when I hear it associated with the idea of abandoned sites. Sometimes I hear the term orphaned site, in which it's perhaps implied that it's not clear who actually owns the site or has responsibility for it. I'm not sure what's being talked about when you're talking about reclamation. Are you talking about a former owner coming back and repairing the surface of the site to some extent, or are you talking about something else that has happened? It's not clear to me, I guess, what reclamation actually means here.
MR. ORAM: In the case of the 103, it's 103 sites, primarily shafts on Crown land that DNR was actively engaged in securing, filling up, and providing some kind of security at the surface to make sure that nobody can re-enter. That was a DNR program and mainly related to abandoned shafts - bootleg shafts and otherwise.
MR. EPSTEIN: So that would mean for a lot of them, it wasn't at all clear who would have responsibility besides the provincial government? Is that the point?
MR. ORAM: It was on Crown land, so they get to deal with it, yes. In the case of orphan, in some cases but not often, the land has ended up going back to the province and the province ends up inheriting things.
I guess the whole picture on reclamation is if it's an existing mine that has environmental assessment approval, and otherwise there is a reclamation bond, there is often active reclamation. There's a term called progressive reclamation, which is doing it as you go. It's sometimes very difficult to do that. You cannot do progressive reclamation on an old mine that you didn't design for that.
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The specific 103 are mine shafts and things that were taken care of by DNR over the last year.
MR. EPSTEIN: Right. I was going to point this out - now that we have the bonding requirement as a standard feature of licensing for mines, that's not a situation we're likely to be looking at on a go-forward basis. Is that right?
MR. ORAM: If someone decides to flee instead of fulfilling their obligations, the bond will get cashed and the province will go out and do the work on behalf of a proponent who has decided to not do the work on their own. The province may still end up doing it, but there's a pot of cash that the proponent provided.
The reclamation bonding in the province is good. In my mind, we've got it right. In terms of the amounts and the requirements and the legislation and everything, I really do think we've got it right now.
MR. EPSTEIN: Yes, I think so too. Can I ask - this is a straight point and you didn't touch on it at all, but I'm wondering if you could just bring me up to date about the current state of play on the proposal that never went ahead for basalt extraction on Digby Neck? My recollection is that after the environmental assessment rejected the proposal, the mining company involved - the name of which escapes me at the moment - made a claim under NAFTA. Can you tell me if that has been resolved or if that's still outstanding, or don't you know?
[10:00 a.m.]
MR. ORAM: It's an aggregate company called Clayton Block and it was basalt - there were no minerals involved, it was rock. My understanding of where it is now is that it's still being evaluated as to whether they want to push things through NAFTA or not.
MR. EPSTEIN: That's fine. I'll try and track it down elsewhere. There was some passing reference to dealing with the Mi'kmaq community, and I guess I'm wondering if you could amplify that a bit? Can you just talk a bit about whether your association has any active or participatory role in the ongoing negotiations with the Aboriginal community in Nova Scotia, or how you do deal with the Aboriginal community here? That would be useful to hear.
MR. ORAM: Sure. It's a personal thing that I've been involved in probably from 1996 to now. As far as the association goes, we've had discussions about process. When the MEKS - the Mi'kmaq Ecological Knowledge Studies - protocol came out, we provided that to all members. We've kind of been a conduit between members and Mi'kmaq communities for some direct discussions, because sometimes people like to talk directly and not deal with governments and industry associations. We've been involved in providing information to
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CMM and other Mi'kmaq organizations to make sure they know what the Mining Association is about and then helping members out with who do we talk to, how do we talk to them. Individual companies certainly have been involved heavily. There's a number of different projects. Every EA project over the last decade, every mining project that has gone through EA, there has always been a Mi'kmaq component, whether it's direct discussions or indirect. In some cases it has involved the Office of Aboriginal Affairs and in some cases they've been direct, so there has always been a Mi'kmaq component in there.
Black Bull Resources, the quartz mine that started in - I guess it opened in about 1999 in southwest Nova Scotia. I was involved in that one, and that was the first mining project that did a Mi'kmaq ecological knowledge study, so I actually helped CMM develop their protocol to do that and then hired them. That was the first mining project that had a Mi'kmaq ecological knowledge study done. It started a relationship that I've had with them and that projects that have taken through permitting have had with the Mi'kmaq community. I think we've done a pretty good job as an industry association. I think we've done as well as we can in terms of providing information to both parties so that they can have a better discussion. It is about knowledge. You've got to have some knowledge before you can have a decent discussion.
MR. EPSTEIN: Well, thank you. That's useful. How much more time do I have?
MR. CHAIRMAN: You're right on the button.
MR. EPSTEIN: Okay, well, perhaps I'll get the chance to continue. Thank you.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you. Mr. Glavine.
MR. LEO GLAVINE: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, Michelle and Peter. Sorry I missed a little bit of your introduction, it was very informative.
I want to start off with, you've just recently - in fact, last week - had your AGM, or your major mine association meetings, I guess, that were . . .
MR. ORAM: The Mining Society.
MR. GLAVINE: The Mining Society, yes, that's right, which is a difference. Exactly. I would take it that you were there?
MR. ORAM: I was not. I was hanging out with my 17-month-old for the weekend.
MR. GLAVINE: Oh, there's nothing wrong with that.
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MS. LANDREVILLE: I wasn't either, I have to admit. We did have representatives there.
MR. GLAVINE: Yes, I was going to ask you about the general mood around mining in the province. Perhaps I can go at it a little differently. I know that the economic recession did have some impacts; as we know, it has delayed a lot of projects and so forth. What is the general state now of how companies that are here, delayed projects - are they now moving along at a little stronger pace? I just wanted a general sense of the industry, I guess.
MS. LANDREVILLE: I think that I would say that to be involved in the mining industry in any way you have to be an eternal optimist. That's sort of the underlying theme for anybody. I think generally in the province the mood is quite good. There have been some developments in terms of funding that have come through for some of the projects that have sort of been sitting on hold for the last little bit. Nova Scotia - I think you can say this from a lot of different points - didn't get hit by the recession, perhaps, as strongly as other parts of the country, and in fact, other parts of the world. I would say it's the same thing for the industry.
As I mentioned, with the exception of the lead-zinc mine, nothing closed, which I think is a good sign. A lot of places, particularly the gypsum guys and the salt guys, scaled back. I think there's a very real sense of optimism on a go-forward basis. You can see the thing starting to flow. People talking about more developments and that kind of thing.
MR. GLAVINE: Thank you. We couldn't miss Peter's mantra there of "gold, gold, gold." That being said, there's a lot of concern in our province because of the widespread concentrations, or different levels of concentrations, around the province. At the same time, we have one of the most comprehensive and longitudinal studies going on around cancer in the province. Again the word arsenic comes up very loud and clear. Is that associated more with sites where some extraction took place? Or is it the general profusion of gold and therefore associations of arsenic in our geology? Also, is there anything going on in the industry that are cleaner processes that will allow us to do a better job in extracting gold? In my view, it should remain one of the minerals we can benefit from in the future. I've asked you two or three questions there, I realize, but if you could kind of attack that, I would appreciate it.
MR. ORAM: Sure. On the arsenic side of things, we have a lot of naturally occurring arsenic. There are many areas in the province where there is absolutely no gold mining but yet we have elevated levels in groundwater and soil. The guideline for arsenic in soil is 12 milligrams per kilogram which is a fairly small number, but we have naturally occurring levels in 100, 150. I do a fair amount of environmental site assessment work as well so I'm dealing with these numbers.
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Arsenic is fairly widespread. It's in groundwater - we've done some fairly good mapping through the Department of Environment on arsenic in groundwater. With areas where there was historic mining - you took the rock, it had some arsenic in it, the main mineral is arsenopyrite which looks like fool's gold except it's a little more grayish coloured. It's like pyrite except it's a sort of steel gray colour with some little striations in it - you can see it in rock, if you have a chunk of rock from this area, you'll see actual chunks of it.
If there was historic operations, those concentrations are going to be elevated because you've crushed the rock down and the gold came out, what's left over is more concentrated. Mercury was used historically - I'm talking hundreds of years ago - gold floats in mercury so mercury was used as a way to extract the gold once you got it down to concentrated.
There are many sites in the province where historic activities happened, where there are tailings that are elevated in arsenic, copper, lead, zinc, a number of metals, as well as mercury. In some areas we have housing developments over top of them, in some areas nothing happened there, and in some areas we have gold mining companies coming back to those and showing some interest.
As sort of a case study, the Moose River project is one where we identified - I worked and did all the permitting on that one - about 50,000 tons worth of historic tailings that were elevated in arsenic and mercury, way above guidelines. We could have spent a lot of time negotiating with the province and said, well, it's not our fault et cetera, but at the end of the day it was there. The Moose River project just said, we'll take care of them as part of the project. We're going to take that, put it in the containment facility, we'll characterize what it's like and we'll take those materials and put them in cells in containment in the tailings management area.
Likely what will happen with these projects, if they go forward, if there are historic tailings, they'll have to deal with them in a similar manner. It's just going to be like buying a house with a bad roof, you want to buy the house, you have to fix it. It's probably the way that most of them will get dealt with.
Now, the question pops into your head, what about all the other sites that people may not know about? There are many pieces of private land all over the province and Crown land that have historic tailings on them that I would say are a liability, that are not currently being addressed. Modern mining won't make it worse. I think most of the projects will likely need to address them because it's part of the conditions at those sites.
MR. GLAVINE: That was a bit lengthy, but I appreciate that. Just to finish off - I know there are others with questions - is the modern process actually a cleaner process in terms of dealing with arsenic associated with the gold?
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MR. ORAM: You don't destroy the arsenic. It's still being concentrated. It's put in a tailings facility as opposed to the swamp in the back or the pond down the road or used in road building and things like that. Cyanide is essentially used as a replacement for mercury, and once it's used for the purpose, which is to dissolve the gold and then to extract it back out, there are cyanide destruction circuits and it's gone and finished. So there's no residual with cyanide, and there certainly is with mercury.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Burrill.
MR. GARY BURRILL: I was wondering if we could go back to this last question Mr. Younger was asking about the EA process. You were saying how so much energy is drawn to questions outside of the specific project itself. I represent Gays River, National Gypsum in Moose River, so I've been involved in many discussions . . .
MR. ORAM: And Mosher Limestone.
MR. BURRILL: I live next to Mosher Limestone. I've been involved in many discussions about this and it seems to me that this is not an easily dismissed problem from the industry's point of view - that is, the kind of public perceptions that lead to these discussions that you find problematic. This is especially true at the present moment when it seems we are on the verge of moving into gold quarrying in Nova Scotia in a qualitatively new way and new things are going to happen in gold quarrying, and Moose River is at the front of them. This happens at a time when the primary face of gold quarrying in the Canadian gold mining industry is not good internationally. Concerns which are brought to these discussions from, let us say, Canadian gold mining quarrying in Mexico - these are not illegitimate concerns. They're not fabricated matters. They may not be specific to the engineering proposals of, say, Moose River, but they are in fact issues very central to the question of the overall integrity with which people ought to regard gold mining quarrying proposals.
The question in my mind is, it seems to me that this is an enormous problem from the industry's point of view. I wonder what your thoughts are about how to deal with it?
MR. ORAM: The reason I brought it up was I think it's disproportionate. We, as an industry, spend way more time talking about international events, episodes, lowest common denominator, and bad seeds than other industries might when it comes to a project. If a shopping mall was about to happen and there was a public meeting about the shopping mall, there's no discussion about labour practices in Peru, there's no discussion about a safety record in India - none of those discussions come into play. You talk about the individual project.
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[10:15 a.m.]
I think we have a situation where there's a disproportionate discussion about international and issues related to an industry elsewhere and the one that's here. I have spent one hour in a meeting talking to someone about Columbian Aboriginal mining issues related to a Brazilian company, as opposed to what we were going to do with the hiking trail or the wetland on this specific project. I just found that disproportionate.
I'm not discounting that it's something that we need to address. I just know that there are situations with projects in Nova Scotia, where let's say we have $1 million for permitting and we have $1 million for community benefits going forward in the project spreadsheet. If we spend $1.8 million on public consultation, then there's $800,000 that's gone for community benefits. I believe that there are projects and situations where that disproportionate discussion about international issues associated about the industry greatly affect the ability of that project to benefit a local community, that's all. I'm not discounting it. It's sometimes tragic on projects.
MR. BURRILL: Well, just to think together about this a bit more. In this specific case, the present discussion taking place in Nova Scotia about the onset of gold quarrying, this is not to be likened to speaking about Columbian labour practices of Brazilian companies. We are talking about the common sense pattern in which people would say, well, Canadian gold quarrying - well, Australian - is to begin here; we are asked to have a judgment about whether or not this is a good thing. It is then a common sense matter to say, well, then, how do gold quarrying companies of these sorts do? What is their record? I would say it's not fair to characterize that as utterly extraneous to the project, particularly because the record is so troubled. In other words, I think this is the problem for proponents of projects, that they come, on gold quarrying particularly, from an industry with such a troubled international record. Doesn't it seem absolutely . . .
MR. ORAM: Oh, absolutely. I'm not being dismissive. If we had an hour to have a discussion about things at a public meeting, I just find it odd that 55 minutes of it would be talking about Columbia and not about a quarrying project in Quebec. People have this burning need to talk about atrocities that have happened in other places, maybe historically with companies that weren't Canadian, but they don't want to have a discussion about a Quebec-based company that had a wonderful mine, that had a perfect safety record, that had all kinds of community benefits. They don't want to listen to that. It's the disproportion that I was pointing out. I'm not discounting the need that you've got to go through it. It's fee for service, I'm paid by the hour - I'll talk about it for 28 hours a day if they want to.
I just know that we lose out on projects in Nova Scotia. The public consultation process - we don't spend enough time talking about the actual project, and that project ends up losing out and so does the community, because we do spend so much time talking about things that are - they are germane, they're not way out there - but I find a disproportionate
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amount of discussion about that than the project that we're actually dealing with. That was my point.
MR. BURRILL: I'm following you. We agree that they are germane and that it is an enormous problem for the industry. How do you propose dealing with it other than through the EA process as we have it?
MR. ORAM: Public education. Fact wins out over fiction; it just takes more time and more effort. You just need to get the facts out there - you need to talk about the real things, what you're actually doing. It just takes time, and you have to walk the walk. If you have a project where you talk about all the great things that you're going to do and then you get into production and you don't do it, you lose your social licence. You have to do a good job at the end of the day.
We don't have a modern gold mine in production. I believe that Moose River, when it gets in production, will do a fine job and it will be an example to use. Right now we don't have one, so you've just got to keep talking to the public. Two people in a room who have completely opposing views - or they believe they have opposing views on things - give them an hour and a good bottle of wine and they'll probably agree on most things.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Younger.
MR. YOUNGER: I just want to very briefly follow up on Mr. Burrill's discussion, because I'm wondering whether you have any ideas of how we get past this. This sort of hits on what I was concerned about in terms of reputation earlier. I've seen some pretty awful mines around the world. I've also seen some very good ones, and I might say that I use Etruscan Resources as the example, having stood in their mines in Niger where they build all kinds of hospitals, schools, and the whole bit and talk to people who live there before they even pull an ounce of gold out of the ground. It strikes me that you could have the Leo Glavine Coal Mining Company come and decide to do a coal mine, yet the questions you're going to get are about a totally unrelated company and the, quite rightly, bad reputation they might have in a mine in Columbia. I'm not sure that it's up to that company to answer for - I think it's a very serious social justice issue.
I think it's very important, it needs a public discussion, an international discussion, but my view is that it's not up to the Leo Glavine Coal Mining Company to answer for the bad reputation of a totally unrelated company in another country, and for everybody to assume that it would be. What would you propose to try and focus that on the company? Now it's different if the Leo Glavine Coal Mining Company was the one mining in Columbia, then that's totally legitimate. It's better for me to pick on one of my own caucus members than to be on the front page of the paper for picking on one of my colleagues across the aisle. (Laughter) I know that there would never be the Howard Epstein Coal Mining Company.
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I'm just wondering, how do we get past that point, because I think Mr. Burrill was right, there is a very serious issue that needs to be discussed somewhere. I also don't feel that's the right place to discuss it because it's not fair to ask somebody to speak to the sins of somebody else. What is your suggestion in terms of addressing that?
MR. ORAM: Well, I think some of the things that have happened over the last little while with the natural resources strategy, with some of the provincial public consultation processes, we needed some public venting and some discussion on that front. I think that helps. We had the mantra over the last three years that we would meet with the Mining Association, we'd meet with anybody, anywhere, anytime, and I think that has helped. You get more people back here that worked elsewhere on the planet so they have that expertise, that experience, and are able to talk about it, having you give kudos to Etruscan Resources and others. If Etruscan Resources did have something here, I'm sure they would approach it in the same way. It's a time factor. We just have to keep talking about it.
When I do public consultation sessions and someone comes in, I always greet them, I always say that for the next couple of hours you're here, just pretend - you have an opportunity here to talk about this project - this project is going to happen and tell me ways it could be better, because if we spend the two hours talking about why the project shouldn't happen, I don't learn anything and the person who is opposed to it doesn't learn anything. You have to get into the discussion about how might it be better, why isn't it good, as opposed to just, it's wrong for all these reasons. We just have to keep poking away at it.
MR. YOUNGER: What is the role of the Mining Association? I'm not even convinced that it's government's role. I mean, there's probably a bit of a role in terms of streamlining, but it strikes me, it's the industry's responsibility to separate themselves in Nova Scotia from some of the stuff that's being done elsewhere.
MS. LANDREVILLE: Yes, I think for us that really is the key part of it. If you remember at the very beginning when I talked about some of the stuff that came out of our strategic planning, education is the biggest piece for a whole bunch of reasons. It's educating our proponents, it's educating the public, it's educating government officials, and that's really the piece. The industry itself - and I don't have Peter's depth of knowledge in terms of the industry because I've not been at it quite as long as he has, not implying of course that he's old - have not done a good job of it, they just haven't. You have to understand, from the industry's point of view, it's really hard to stand up in front of a crowd of people when you've been doing something for a long time and you know that you're going to be the one voice that's representing the industry, people are not going to like what you have to say and it doesn't matter if it's right or wrong, good or bad, or it just doesn't matter.
In Nova Scotia in particular, I look at the people who sit around my table, at the board level, and the members, and they've just not done a good job for a whole bunch of reasons. Some of them I can't blame them for, on talking about what they are doing and how well
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they're doing it. That's the difference we need, and I think we're almost there with this group in terms of the province, where they're almost ready to talk about their projects. I can still call members who have been doing spectacular jobs with reclamation and it's like, you know, I really would like to do a piece for the newsletter and it's, oh, I don't know if I want to talk about that because they've been targeted for so long. So educating them on the fact that it's okay to talk about what you do right, and yes you might get a couple of questions about stuff that other people are doing but, do you know what, you need to address it because it is a worldwide issue.
So our role is to make sure that that happens and, you know, the Natural Resources strategy, that Phase I where they worked with Voluntary Planning and went around the province and had - I don't know - 32 or 36 meetings, I went to like 28 of them, and it was really eye-opening because it was the first time I think in a long time that there had been industry people at these consultations, for one, people who were willing to listen, for two, and then it all sort of came out in the wash. I think that's a big part of it - we spent a lot of time meeting with different environmental groups and different stakeholders to open the doors of discussion.
I say this - and I'll use the Department of Environment - all the time to the guys in there because it's like you just need to come meet my board so the both of you can realize that you don't have three hats, because it works both ways and until there's a comfort level with that we're not really going to get a whole lot further. If we can get government officials and we can get the industry comfortable with talking about what's being done that's right and addressing things that may not be right, because it's not all perfect yet, then it will be a whole lot easier for us to go out to the public and say, okay, this is where we are and, like Peter said, what is it that we can do that's going to be better and let's work towards that. So I think for us that's our role.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Just a quick question for my own interest, if the committee will allow - is the association ready to take a proactive approach and take the lead without legislation in this province?
MS. LANDREVILLE: Yes, the key piece is not only the association, but I think the members are as well. So it's one thing for the association to say we endorse.
MR. CHAIRMAN: But the association representing the members?
MS. LANDREVILLE: Yes, yes, and it happens nationally as well.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Is that something that's being worked on?
MS. LANDREVILLE: Yes, it's something that's happening at the national level in Canada. There is the Prospectors & Developers Association and the Mining Association of
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Canada who both, over probably the last two years, year and a half, have come out with corporate social responsibility dictums, if I can put it that way. So we as an organization have been looking at the same thing - a voluntary code that people would live by, that would be a document that they would sign off and if they want to be members of the organization, this is what you have to live to. So, yes, we've been working on it. We're trying to not reinvent the wheel, you know we're small by comparison to some of the other larger national organizations and so we've been working with them to try to facilitate it, but that is where we want to head.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you.
Mr. Epstein.
[10:30 a.m.]
MR. EPSTEIN: I'm going to just continue with a few odds and ends of questions - I apologize because I'm probably going to skip around a bit; I just want to pick up on a few things that got mentioned.
One point that you mentioned in passing was that the province used to train prospectors. Can you tell me a bit more about that - when did the province train prospectors, what happened to the program, has it shifted to somewhere else, how do prospectors get trained?
MR. ORAM: They did it for decades and decades. There was one primary person, Howard Donahoe, who was sort of coordinating that program, who lives in your area.
MR. EPSTEIN: He lives in my constituency, yes, he does.
MR. ORAM: Yes. Yes, you guys looked a little similar too, it's spooky. And when he retired, the program effectively retired as well. It was extremely effective. Prospectors, the training program, I'm not sure how much it took but they trained them and then the prospectors would go out and get exploration licences. So I think it was almost a wash in terms of the amount of money spent on new exploration licences and the amount of money that was spent on the program - plus prospectors had to drive to a site, they had to stay overnight, et cetera. So I think in terms of the bang for the buck, it was quite good.
MR. EPSTEIN: I have to say my recollection is that prospectors, in order to get a prospecting licence, are not required to have any formal training - or am I wrong about that?
MR. ORAM: Correct, they are not.
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MR. EPSTEIN: So this was an add-on, it was just an extra that was something that helped . . .
MR. ORAM: It helped them get recognized in other provinces as well. If they wanted to work in other provinces, it was a ticket. Now a lot of them end up getting sort of certified in other provinces and then do the work here.
MR. EPSTEIN: Is there formal training in other provinces?
MR. ORAM: Yes.
MR. EPSTEIN: I see. Okay.
MS. LANDREVILLE: And just to follow up on one point that you had asked - currently the provincial government doesn't have any prospectors' training, but we do have the Nova Scotia Prospectors Association and they do a really small version of what used to be offered because they do obviously feel that it's critical to the development of the industry. If I am not mistaken, I think they do two sessions every year where they just take out anybody who is interested and walk them through the process.
MR. EPSTEIN: One of the other things you mentioned was that you might be looking for changes to the Mineral Act. I'm wondering if you can expand on that - and I wonder a couple of things in particular - my recollection again is that we have kind of an open access system here and I'm wondering if that's part of what you're looking at, and I also wonder how we compare with some of the other Atlantic Provinces in particular.
MR. ORAM: My note about that was that I sensed that the natural resources strategy, when it fully rolls through, part of the rollout is going to have to be a re-evaluation of the Mineral Resources Act and potentially that there are changes. That was my note about the linkage - I'm forecasting that if some of the things in the natural resources strategy are going to be adopted, it is going to require some changes in the Mineral Resources Act.
MR. EPSTEIN: Oh, I see, but if the Act is going to be looked at for possible reforms, presumably the association might have views on some changes it would like to see - I understood you to say that?
MR. ORAM: Yes, but I wouldn't say they are fully formed at this stage.
MR. EPSTEIN: Fine, okay. Am I right - do we have basically an open access system, or would you use a different term for it?
MR. ORAM: Well, it's open access, but there's a landowner requirement to sign on to it, so it's not quite the same as other provinces but it is similar.
[Page 28]
MR. EPSTEIN: And are there major differences between our legislation and other Atlantic Provinces' legislation?
MR. ORAM: No, our difference is the proportion of private land versus public land.
MR. EPSTEIN: Yes, as a hard fact of ownership.
MR. ORAM: That's right, as compared to New Brunswick or Newfoundland and Labrador or otherwise. It's that hard fact, legislation doesn't change that in terms of someone being able to go and drill or prospect in that location - no legislation is going to change that, I don't think.
MR. EPSTEIN: Okay, thanks. One interesting point was I saw there was a mention of your view that the province needs designated areas for mining. I'm not sure what context this came up in - I assume that you're talking about on Crown land. Does that refer to what I think is called the integrated resource management system that DNR has in place that essentially zones Crown land for different uses - is that what we're talking about, or is it something else?
MR. ORAM: Sort of. It came up in our discussions about Ship Harbour Long Lake mainly, in that we were engaged in discussions with DNR, Nova Scotia Environment, CPAWS - Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, and the Ecology Action Centre was at the table, and we were at the table.
A number of us sat down to actually look at maps and talk about boundaries on that particular protected area, and one of the things that came out of that discussion was, boy, there are some small chunks here that really have no ecological value, but yet were historic mining areas and are areas where people are actively doing exploration and it may lead to development. So here we are having a discussion about a large chunk of land that is going to be set aside for ecological, recreational and otherwise, sort of public value-type things, but we're not having the same discussion about these areas that are Crown land that have high mineral potential, people are actively exploring in it and there's a high likelihood that eventually there will be a mine there - so why aren't we having a similar discussion about designating that as a mineral attraction area? That's sort of where it came from.
That extended to, as part of this overall discussion about how we're using land in Nova Scotia, and we're talking about values, we're talking about ecological values, recreational values, cultural values. We're talking about values. Mineral resources have a value, so why aren't we having the same discussion about drawing some lines around areas where everybody knows that at $1,200 an ounce, someone is going to go in there and drill some holes and likely try to open up a mine.
[Page 29]
MR. EPSTEIN: So the comment was primarily made in the context of the wilderness protected areas or parks or other potential set-aside areas. Do I take it, then, that it wasn't particularly made with respect to residual Crown land that is not being considered for these things?
MS. LANDREVILLE: No, we actually do have a request in to the Department of Natural Resources to look at designating the Faribault gold district as a first step. I know that there's also a movement afoot with a number of other organizations perhaps looking at designating aggregate areas, particularly as - and I'll use HRM as an example - HRM continues to expand its footprint, aggregate is going to become a much more precious commodity.
There have been some discussions not only at the provincial level, but also at the municipal level about looking at designating areas that we know are hot spots for aggregate. You might want to consider protecting these when you're looking at zonings and moving forward with development plans, because trucking aggregate is costly, and it's also not a great idea in terms of environment when you've got rock right there that you can use. We've been working on both of those on two different fronts just to make people aware that that's it.
But the Faribault gold districts are - I never remember the numbers, I don't know if it's 61 or 31, I can't remember - and I can get it if you need it, but there are a number of historic gold districts that have set boundaries on them, that were developed in the early 1900s and we have put a request in for those to be considered protected areas for mineral development.
MR. ORAM: Just so that we're clear, this is not to go whole hog and free rein - you would still go through the environmental assessment process, you would still have public consultation, all of those things. The aggregate point is a great one, too, because we all know Dartmouth Crossing. Dartmouth Crossing is in the former Steed and Evans quarry that operated for over 100 years and provided probably, I don't know, 100 years X 100 employees - what's that? - 10,000 person years worth of employment and millions in property taxes, et cetera to Dartmouth and HRM. So that happened for 100 years and then the shopping centre went there - if it had been the other way around, there would never be a quarry that operated for 100 years and we wouldn't have any of that aggregate. We really have to look in HRM on the aggregate side of things, on why don't we do the extraction first and then we'll put the retail and the housing in after?
MR. EPSTEIN: Have you been in touch with the HRM planners about this?
MR. ORAM: Oh yes, for decades. And DNR has some really good - Garth Prime in the 1990s did an excellent aggregate potential in HRM, kind of mapped out how much is
[Page 30]
used, how much is needed, what's left in the existing quarries, and there's some very, very good studies on this.
MR. EPSTEIN: And on the provincial line, you used a word I'm not familiar with, did you say Faribault gold? What is this?
MR. ORAM: Yes, Faribault. He was a classic geologist in the late 1800s, early 1900s, who mapped almost the entire province - he created a number of different gold districts, the Upper Rawdon district, the Mount Uniacke district, the Renfrew district. These were areas that had the right geology, gold occurrences and things like that, so he mapped all of these and classified them in gold districts.
MR. EPSTEIN: Is the province continuing to do any mapping?
MR. ORAM: Yes.
MR. EPSTEIN: I take it it's available to prospectors?
MR. ORAM: Yes. DNR makes great maps; they do.
MR. EPSTEIN: Thank you. That's it for me, for now.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Glavine.
MR. GLAVINE: Mr. Chairman, just a couple of other questions. We know that mining gypsum in Hants County has been a pretty stable industry now for quite some time and plans to expand the mine there, but it's also a great barometer of economic recovery as well in the U.S. housing sector. I'm just wondering, how is the mine currently doing and what are its prospects there?
MR. ORAM: I don't speak on behalf of the company, but I do know that they have no production plan for 2010 from their operations in Windsor and the Millers Creek mine and the Wentworth Creek mine - so they plan on having zero new production. I think they have stockpiles from previous years, perhaps some of that is going to be shipped and things like that, but there's no production from that area. National Gypsum continues to have production, it comes into Burnside via rail and is shipped out. Little Narrows Gypsum - in Little Narrows, ironically - in Cape Breton has production this year as well, and I think they are at a similar level as they have been for the last few years.
MR. GLAVINE: We all know that White Point - you know the quarry on Long Island, the uranium issue, whether an environmental study was an environmental study on the recent gold mining operations - you know, they do put some cloud over our industry here. You have referenced an area that I know is very real and poses a lot of logistical problems
[Page 31]
around the 70-30 land ownership question in Nova Scotia. As far as foreign companies coming into Nova Scotia, is it that whole issue around, we don't seem to be as open as New Brunswick and Newfoundland, for example, or is it land ownership issues? Is it a combination of all of these? How do you view that as we go forward?
MR. ORAM: It is a combination. The Fraser Institute report actually does a really good job of breaking it down into public, taxation, royalties, government relations - they have a number of different categories. So in our case our lower overall ranking relates to that combination of things.
I would point out, though, that there's a flip side to that. If a company does choose to come here despite all of the obstacles that aren't in other places, they are extra committed to having a project happen. Their budgets are perhaps a little bit larger than they might be in other jurisdictions because they know that it's going to take a little longer to get to opening day and they've got to make sure that the resources are there as well - you don't go along on something without doing your research to make sure that it's a viable project that has the resources that you need.
The people who have been from elsewhere who have been involved in projects, they have a real will to get to opening day. I would put forward the argument that the projects are a little better designed or a little more focused, because despite all the obstacles they still want to go ahead with that project. So there is a flip side to having a low ranking. You don't just want the exploration, right, you do want them to get to opening day as well.
MR. GLAVINE: In terms of a conference like you'll have this Fall, the Mining Matters Conference, what does the association hope to achieve? Is it about an internal provincial discussion around mining and where we are? Does it attract others into the province? What's the focus that you hope to gain there, Michelle?
[10:45 a.m.]
MS. LANDREVILLE: I'm just chuckling because that is the same question we just asked ourselves about two weeks ago - what is it that we hope to gain? Just for clarity, the Mining Matters Conference is actually run and organized by the Department of Natural Resources. While we do participate and we do help out and they graciously allow us to give them our opinions on things, it is not our conference.
That being said, we do work quite closely with them. Again, going back to this idea of educating and getting people to understand what a modern mining operation looks like and what modern prospectors are, the bottom line for us is education. We're actually in our discussions with the people who are involved in organizing this particular event. We've decided this year that we're going to actually try to do something a little bit different in terms
[Page 32]
of that, and perhaps make sure that our outreach is maybe a little bit more outside of our comfort level and our comfort zone so that we can engage a lot more people.
At last year's conference we did a little bit of work in terms of trying to get some of the environmental organizations involved and they responded positively and did come. This year I think we're going to try to broaden the scope yet again, and so some of the discussions that we've had with the department is to look at things like trying to engage the municipal land planners to come, that kind of thing - school boards, and trying to get them involved and interested so that we can develop it into much more of an educational conference.
I said it earlier - and I'll repeat it because I think it's worth considering - the industry has not done a great job about talking about who they are, and they have, in the past, used conferences like that one to talk amongst themselves about the stuff they're doing.
One of the focuses that I've brought to the organization, I think, is that if you want to talk about your own stuff to each other, you should just pick up the phone, and we should use these things to actually talk about your projects in a much broader scope. So we're going to try and shift some of the way that Mining Matters has worked over the last little while and see if that might be a nice avenue for us to use it.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Burrill.
MR. BURRILL: I was just thinking - following on the question you had about the specific Crown/private land composition of Nova Scotia and how distinct that is - about the development of projects in different jurisdictions. Because of our small percentage of Crown land, it must be the case that surface rights acquisition is a particular kind of a challenge for developing projects here. It must be an obstacle in the way that is not the case in a lot of jurisdictions that we would be comparing ourselves with. Wouldn't that be so?
MR. ORAM: Absolutely. Moose River, as an example, probably would have started a year and a half to two years ago. We're dealing with deeds that include descriptions of "seven chains to the west to the apple tree that has the seven knots that face east to the pile of stones with the iron pin" and very confused aspects when it comes to who actually owns things.
The land related stuff, access to do the exploration, and then to carry on through to opening day to actually - you can do a lease of land to put overburden on it, or to do the extraction and then you do the reclamation after, or you negotiate, but you still need to know what the boundaries are and who owns it and get hold of them. A lot of people in Boston seem to own land here as well, because every project you end up talking to someone from Boston to figure out whether they still own this chunk of land and things like that. It is a unique challenge straight on through.
MR. BURRILL: We're very involved in Moose River, to know that.
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MS. LANDREVILLE: The other thing too is - Peter speaks about individuals but there's a lot of challenges in dealing with some of the corporate landowners. I'll reference the forest industry in particular. They, in some ways, have sort of free rein on what they want to do in terms of allowing people access to the land, the same as an individual landowner would. There are some challenges from that aspect, as well, in terms of monetary fees that they charge and that kind of thing. It is unique in terms of trying to deal with private or corporate landowners.
MR. CHAIRMAN: If there are no further questions, if you would like to make a closing statement.
MR. ORAM: Sure. I want to thank everybody for taking the time and the effort ahead of time to have some questions, that I think, really helped out. We appreciate this opportunity.
Just to close, I want everyone to remember that we're an industry organization that can very quickly give you an idea of what the industry feels about an issue. I think our primary value to elected officials is that if you want to very quickly know how the mining industry might feel about something then you phone the Mining Association of Nova Scotia. We'll very quickly give you the answer, so we provide a lot of value there.
I'd encourage everybody to remember some of the facts. We have a smaller footprint than all the golf courses, it's a $0.5 billion industry, the best resource safety record, the best income of the resource sector. We have a huge multiplier for spinoff jobs at two and a half to three, so every one that's created, you have two and a half to three times that. It's primarily rural areas in Nova Scotia, they have enough challenges let alone losing some mines.
We are like other industries that have a long history. I hate using an Oprah-ism, but I will - we did what we did until we knew better and when we knew better, we did better. We'll continue to do better. It's an industry that's ancient. You can draw on that expertise, but it's also a hobble in some cases.
I want to leave with a couple of philosophic things - one of the great things that's happening in the public discussion about things is carbon footprint, food miles, fair trade, and a number of things. I'm looking forward to the day when we examine all of our products in the same way. If we look at, where did that titanium come from in my bicycle? Why wasn't that produced here? Why was it produced in Malaysia?
We are moving towards having a discussion about where our things come from, how do you know how they were produced, under what environmental standards were they produced? We treat coffee and copper very differently and I think it's going to help the mining industry because perhaps smaller focused, higher value projects right here in Nova Scotia might get a little more attention through that process. I'm looking forward to that.
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One other thing is reclamation. We'll continue to do a better job at that. We never used to design for reclamation, and if you don't design - using a house analogy - if you don't think about the renovations that you might do in the future and the add-ons, you end up with an ugly house with a whole bunch of different wings going in different directions. But if you plan for it ahead of time, then you're going to do a better job, so we will do a better job at that going forward.
We had a classic discussion with one environmental group that demanded to know where all the good examples of reclamation projects are. We said, that's the irony, the good ones you can't see because they blend in. You drive by them every day that you drive by New Glasgow, you drive by them every day that you go past Windsor. There are thousands of examples of good reclamation projects. The point is that you can't see them. Thank you.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you very much.
We have some committee business here. Back on November 17th, the PC caucus had requested bringing in Shear Wind Inc as a witness. They couldn't come at the time, now we don't have any representation here today from the PC caucus. With the committee's permission, we will hold this until we do have representation from the PC caucus, and then carry on with the witness regarding wind energy, if that's the committee's wish.
MR. EPSTEIN: I take it from our potential schedule that we're probably not going to meet again until September. If we are going to turn our mind to wind energy, there is certainly lots of time to sort this out. That's fine.
I actually do have a suggestion, if the Shear Wind folks are not available, I wonder if we might explore the possibility of bringing in Dan Roscoe as a witness? I don't remember him being here, but I think he's the chief operating officer for Scotian WindFields.
What you might do is run his name by the PC caucus in the meantime, so they're aware of another possibility. I've heard him speak a few times; he certainly seems well-informed. Anyway, I just make that as a passing suggestion and specifically request that it be raised with the PC caucus, since the topic was theirs.
MR. YOUNGER: I would concur with Mr. Epstein. I mean if they can't be bothered to show up to committee, that's their own problem - and I don't mind saying that publicly. If they want to be juvenile and do that, that's fine, but the thing is I would suggest that's a fair assumption. I think Chebucto Wind Field is good, they may wish to come - Scotian WindFields, sorry, they are all linked together. You might want to ask if Barry Zwicker wants to come with them because he also has the planning background, so he may be able to talk to some of the zoning issues from his previous history as well, which might be of use to some people because I know it is one of the challenges.
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If that doesn't work out the other option might be Luciano Lisi, who is also involved in a number of alternate energies, but I would agree with Mr. Epstein, run it by the PC caucus. I think instead of waiting for another meeting, if we're all okay with that, Mr. Epstein's suggestion, let's do that.
MR. EPSTEIN: On a related point - am I missing something? Are we being boycotted by the PC caucus?
MR. YOUNGER: They're boycotting all the meetings.
MR. EPSTEIN: No kidding, how did that happen? I've missed this entirely.
MR. GLAVINE: Public Accounts.
MR. EPSTEIN: Oh, because of Public Accounts, I see. It's all your fault.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Okay, so that will handle that. I guess our next meeting date will be on September 16th.
Our meeting is adjourned.
[The committee adjourned at 10:59 a.m.]
