{"id":1162586,"date":"2020-01-29T16:55:00","date_gmt":"2020-01-29T22:55:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.mining.com\/?p=1012471"},"modified":"2020-01-29T16:55:00","modified_gmt":"2020-01-29T22:55:00","slug":"british-columbia-capitalizes-on-advantage-in-mining","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/?p=1162586","title":{"rendered":"British Columbia capitalizes on advantage in mining"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Given the importance of US institutional and retail investor capital for the province\u2019s mining industry, it\u2019s always instructive to hear what American investors like Rick Rule, president of Sprott US Holdings, think about the province of British Columbia as a place to build mines.<\/p>\n<div class='d-flex justify-content-center d-xs-block d-sm-block d-md-none'>\n<div id='div-gpt-ad-1561499308230-0'><script>googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-1561499308230-0');});<\/script><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>At a CEO breakfast at the opening of the Association for Mineral Exploration Roundup conference last week, Rule, a retail broker specializing in mining and exploration investments, said Vancouver has proved itself as a mining centre of excellence and is well poised to benefit from the convergence of mining and technology.<\/p>\n<p>He said it needs to do just one thing: \u201cJust. Don\u2019t. Screw. It. Up.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>For a region that is only \u201creasonably well endowed geologically,\u201d B.C. punches well above its weight as a mining industry player, he said.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-pullquote alignright\">\n<blockquote>\n<p> The financing, legal, accounting, engineering, environmental and other professional services that have developed around mining in Vancouver have made it a global \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for the mining and minerals exploration sector<\/p>\n<p><cite> Rick Rule, president, Sprott US Holdings <\/cite><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n<p>The financing, legal, accounting, engineering, environmental and other professional services that have developed around mining in Vancouver have made it a global \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for the mining and minerals exploration sector.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cVancouver has become a city that has one of the largest population bases of mining professionals on the planet,\u201d Rule said. \u201cYou don\u2019t have a lot of \u2026 institutional capital in Vancouver, but Vancouver has been unusually good at mobilizing capital from other places. And in that you have a real advantage \u2013 you have us. You have access to U.S. retail.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Sprott Capital Partners, for instance, led a series of private placements totalling more than $20 million in 2019 in Vancouver\u2019s Sun Metals Corp. (TSX-V:SUNM), which is developing the Stardust copper-gold project northwest of Fort. St. James.<\/p>\n<p>Rule said cities around the world strive to become \u201chubs\u201d or centres of excellence for a variety of industries such as biotech, artificial intelligence, clean technology and aerospace. Vancouver is already a mining centre of excellence, and its digital and clean-technology sectors provide a natural opportunity for synergy.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe convergence in technology and mining is going to occur \u2026 and what better place for it to occur?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Even environmental \u201cmesses\u201d and disasters like the Mount Polley tailings pond collapse in 2014 present business opportunities, Rule said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere is going to be a monster, monster opportunity \u2013 how do I put this politely? \u2013 in cleaning up the messes that we\u2019ve made historically,\u201d he said. \u201cThe opportunities that are going to become available to issuers, to consultants, to everybody in environmental remediation, environmental underwriting and environmental stewardship, while they impose a cost, also have the opportunity to impose substantial benefits. And I think Vancouver has the ability to be absolutely at the forefront of that.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-pullquote alignright\">\n<blockquote>\n<p> Vancouver is already a mining centre of excellence, and its digital and clean-technology sectors provide a natural opportunity for synergy<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n<p>\u201cVancouver has amazing and, I believe, durable competitive advantages in the mining business. Durable enough that it actually doesn\u2019t need to be improved on, except in the sense that if you don\u2019t continue to improve, you degrade.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Both the John Horgan government in B.C. and the Justin Trudeau government have taken steps recently that suggest they are not taking mining in Canada for granted, and are making efforts to support it and grow the sector.<\/p>\n<p>It is an industry that accounts for 19% of Canada\u2019s exports and 5% of Canada\u2019s gross domestic product. It is also the single largest sectoral employer of First Nations, many of which say jobs and prosperity are important components of reconciliation.<\/p>\n<p>Last year, the Trudeau government produced the Canadian Minerals and Metals Plan, in collaboration with the provinces, which acknowledged how important mining already is to the Canadian economy, and set out six areas of action to bolster the sector. They are:<\/p>\n<p>\u2022tax reform and financial incentives;<\/p>\n<p>\u2022addressing regulatory burden and overlap;<\/p>\n<p>\u2022increased funding for geoscience;<\/p>\n<p>\u2022settling Indigenous land claims;<\/p>\n<p>\u2022working with Indigenous communities in remote regions to address infrastructure deficits; and<\/p>\n<p>\u2022encouraging processing and smelting.<\/p>\n<p>In the last budget, the federal government extended the mineral exploration tax credit out to 2024, and the Trudeau government also recently signed a collaboration agreement with the U.S. on critical metals.<\/p>\n<p>Paul Lefebvre, parliamentary secretary to the minister of natural resources, said the critical metals plan aims not only to secure the supply of rare earths and other critical metals in North America through new mines, but also to develop the advanced manufacturing that uses these metals.<\/p>\n<p>Lefebvre cited a battery manufacturing plant for electric vehicles as an example of the kind of manufacturing Canada has in mind.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHow do we secure all those minerals that support that industry?\u201d Lefebvre said.<\/p>\n<p>Provincially, the John Horgan BC NDP government struck the Mining Jobs Task Force, agreed to adopt all 25 recommendations and bumped up the budget of the Ministry of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources by $20 million to reduce permitting backlogs.<\/p>\n<p>But it also enacted changes to the B.C. Environmental Management Act in a way that some fear could kill projects before they even enter the environmental review process.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe new environmental assessment process \u2026 adds a tremendous amount of costs,\u201d John Rustad, BC Liberal MLA for Nechako Lakes, said during a political panel discussion at the conference. \u201cBecause under the new environmental assessment, you\u2019ve got to cover off all the First Nations costs \u2026 which quite frankly is open-ended.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><em>(This article first appeared in <a href=\"https:\/\/biv.com\/\"  rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\"Business in Vancouver (opens in a new tab)\">Business in Vancouver<\/a>)<\/em><\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The province has bumped up the budget of the Ministry of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources by $20 million to reduce permitting backlogs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":47,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[2648,369],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1162586"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/47"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1162586"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1162586\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1162587,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1162586\/revisions\/1162587"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1162586"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1162586"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1162586"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}