Mining and exploration will not have any direction if the provincial budget doesn’t pass, says the executive director of Ontario Prospectors Association.
Ontario Finance Minister Dwight Duncan revealed the multi-billion dollar budget last week with the main goal to balance the books in five years. The budget will need some kind of support from outside of the Liberal party to pass.
Garry Clark, executive director of Ontario Prospectors Association, said if the province heads into an election instead of passing a budget, then it the mining and exploration industry will be left without any direction.
“If the provincial budget fails and if the leadership fails all that will do is cause some uncertainty in where we’re going next,” Clark said.
“Our business is all certainty. We have to know that we can get on the land, we have to know where we can explore and we have to know eventually where we can mine. So certainty is the big thing for us.”
The provincial budget also didn’t give much detail on what plans are being laid out for exploration, he said. The only mining project mentioned was the Ring of Fire.
Clark said financially they rely more on what’s in the federal budget and the flow-through shares, which is a tax reduction that’s provided to companies for exploration. The program was extended another year in the federal budget.
With the program secure, many prospectors were ready to learn about and explore some new opportunities at the Northwestern Ontario Mines and Minerals Symposium.
The two-day conference, which started on Tuesday, was held at the Valhalla Inn and had more than 90 booths set up.
Clark said the conference gives people a chance to show their products and generate good ideas.
One of those ideas was the Core Mapper developed by Photonic Knowledge.
The geological device measures a drill core’s chemistry and physics simultaneously and can provide details not previously seen.
Éric Roberge, president of Photonic Knowledge, said within 15 minutes they can measure five boxes of a core sample and know what types of minerals are present while the drill is turning onsite.
One of the main benefits for this process is that it’s faster because it can do a thousand metres a day compared to a geologist that can only do 150 metres a day, he said.
While the machine isn’t meant to replace geologists, its main goal is to complement those efforts, he said.
The Quebec based company has only had the machine commercially for the past year, but Roberge said he hoped to take on some new projects including the Ring of Fire.
“This is a brand new technique,” he said.
“The old technique is really relying on the geologists experience and his eye, which is still important. It’s the same thing that’s done in the medical business. Being a part of the Ring of Fire would be really nice. The main challenge is getting the geologists to know us.”
