Lost in the Woods
OPAP canned and Ontario prospectors now in political wilderness

HighGrader Magazine January/February 2000
by Charlie Angus

The cancellation of OPAP (Ontario Prospectors Assistance Program) barely made a dent in the press coverage surrounding the fall budget of the Ontario Legislature. With the Tories seemingly hell bent on shaking down every last Tiny Tim in the province, the woes of the exploration industry just didn't make for compelling reading.
Critics claimed that this budget was strictly aimed at targets with little or no public muscle the homeless, welfare cases, even basic education support for deaf and blind kids (the government was left scrambling when that little nugget was leaked to the press).
Very telling then, to find Ontario's prospectors tossed in with the other provincial have-nots. They were tagged with the loss of the $2 million a year grant system known as OPAP. All in all , it was a drop in the bucket as the Tories squeezed hard to come up with $900 million in cuts to pay for their election promise of more tax breaks.
For prospectors, however, that drop in the bucket represented a life-line.

Bob Calhoun speaks for the Porcupine Prospectors Association. "We feel the government is trying to meet its objective of cutting $900 million by doing it the easiest way taking money from the little guy."
OPAP is the latest in a long series of blood-letting in the Ministry of Northern Development and Mines (MNDM). The losses, up to now, had been in the support infrastructure.
Under the Tories, the MNDM budget has dropped from $60 million a year to $20 million. Tossed out along the way have been a number of regional Geologist's offices, the drill core library, the Mining Recorder's offices and the Ontario Mineral Incentives Program
Some prospectors are saying that the remaining infrastructure such as the online recorder's office and maps programs are so poorly maintained they are all but useless. Various prospectors describe the new online service as "a joke", "atrocious" or a "bloody disgrace".
The loss of OPAP, however, will have direct impact as it was the only direct support prospectors could access. It allowed them to offset some of the massive costs incurred during exploration. An individual prospector could apply for up to $15,000 to underwrite exploration, geophysical surveys and line cutting.
Calhoun explains, "Fifteen thousands dollars isn't a lot of money, but it sure helped a lot of prospectors survive."
The costs of turning a claim into a viable and hopefully saleable option often involves a major outlay of money and time.
"If you're exploring in areas with 25 to 200 metres of overburden, the only way you can do it is if you can pay for airborne surveys," says Calhoun. "Without OPAP there will be a lot of places now where the little guy just won't have a chance."
The loss of OPAP comes at the lowest point in mineral exploration in the history of the province. Canadian mining companies are spending their exploration budgets offshore. Small junior companies, which traditionally kept individual prospectors in business, have been marginalized in the wake of the Bre-X fiasco.
As well, interest in gold stocks has plummeted. With European governments dumping their gold reserves the metal doesn't look bound for a comeback. Add to this intense monetary speculation and lacklustre metals sales and it's no wonder that Ontario's mines are hanging on the ropes like an aging boxer facing the slow train to Palookaville.
Nowhere is the sad state of the aging boxer more obvious than in Northeastern Ontario. Traditionally the mining and exploration powerhouse of the country, and often the continent, the region has seen three out of five mining regions completely shut down in the last decade. It is arguable that over the next decade the remaining two regions (Sudbury and Timmins) will be reduced to a shadow of their former production.
An article in the prospectors' journal Explorationist by Stew Fumerton and Bruce Jeffery highlights a staggering list of companies who have shut their exploration offices in Northeastern Ontario.
"At this rate, major mining companies will effectively abandon grassroots exploration in Canada over the next decade," the authors warn.
They point out that among other problems facing the industry, the majors are being squeezed by brokerage houses in the pursuit of short-term profits. The result is that grassroots exploration, which is costly and far from certain, are being axed by many companies.
Bob Calhoun concurs, "We have to be in the deepest and worst slump I've ever seen. When you drive by the major drilling companies in Timmins and see how many drills are sitting in their yards, you know something is terribly wrong."

Kicked in the Goolies
Part of the problem facing the prospecting industry is getting used to the realpolitik of the new Ontario. With a solid majority carved out from the urban base of Southern Ontario, logging and prospecting interests have become political liabilities.
There is strong perception in the north that the region's two main industries mining and logging have come to personify all that is environmentally wrong with the world, while the chemical, auto and manufacturing industries of the south are allowed to belch along without a second glance.
Andrew Tims, an exploration geologist in Timmins, accuses the government (in an open letter to MNDM Minister Tim Hudak) of trying to distance itself from mining because urban voters perceive it to be a "dirty industry." Tims points out that under the Province's Lands for Life planning process, the northern landbase was used to appease the urban taste for green.
Lands for Life was certainly a wake-up call for the prospecting community. They were completely frozen out when the government decided to toss out the public process and cut a backroom deal with the environmental lobby group Partnership for Public Lands and the heads of three large pulp operations (see Lake Couchiching Confidential HighGrader May / June 1999).
Lands for Life booted the prospectors out of 12% of the Northern landbase with another nearly two million acres possibly to be set off limits in the new year. When the deal came down, the prospectors were left to read about it in the morning paper along with every other Joe in the province.
Ever the smooth operators, the Tories kept the prospectors quiet with the promise of $21 million in short term exploration investment. Nineteen million dollars was set aside to run geophysical surveys under the new "Treasure Hunt" program and the other $2 million went to fatten OPAP for a year. Now that year is ended and so is OPAP.

Getting Onside
With the future of MNDM looking about as certain as a one-industry town with no ore, the question is whether the exploration industry in Ontario will be able to mount a political comeback. One exploration geologist says that at the very minimum some kind of grant system will be needed to keep the struggling industry afloat. "All the investment dollars have gone offshore. You can't raise any money in the private sector these days even if you're literally sitting on a literal gold mine."
Another prospector, however, sees the loss of OPAP as having a silver lining."There were negative business implications from OPAP for me. Many of my competitors would never have been able to survive without OPAP. Now that its gone it would leave me in a better competitive position."
Dave Christianson is President of the Northwestern Prospectors Association in Thunder Bay. He says that prospectors have to realize that OPAP is history and start working as a cohesive unit.
"Losing OPAP is certainly a major kick in the nuts. But we have to be realists. There's no sense fighting for the reinstatement of OPAP. It's like the cancellation of the spring bear hunt. It's already been done to us."
Christianson says that OPAP, which had to be approved in Parliament on an annual basis, has been on thin ice for years.
"It was very much susceptible to the whims of the government of the day. We were lucky to have it as long as we did."
Cancelling OPAP was one of the first forays into the mining community for new Ministry of Mines and Northern Development Minister Tim Hudak. Christianson says, however, that he's not blaming Hudak for dropping the ball.
"For a $4 to 5 billion a year industry that mining is, and for having our own Mining Act that is intended to encourage mineral development in the province, we have very little clout. It has nothing to do with the size of the Minister's balls, either. It's simply political."
He says he appreciates the fact that Hudak personally called the heads of the various prospecting associations the day the budget came down to let them know the program was history.
Christianson says that prospectors have to come to terms with the new political reality.
"Mining is a northern industry. Look at the MPPs in government. One hundred per cent of them are from Southern Ontario. You look at the population 85% down there, 15% up here. What's the attitude about extending parks and protection in the north 85% for and 15% against. It's that simple."
Christianson believes that until the prospectors become better organized and more willing to work as a cohesive lobby group they will continue to lose out.
"Until we wake up and smell the dog shit we're going to forever be on the hind tit. I got to know some of those guys from the Partnership for Public Land during the Lands for Life process and you have to admire their cunning. They are politicians. It's not hard to see how they got their wins. They know how to get the job done."
Christianson says that the regional prospector's associations are still very much "fractionated" to form an effective lobby. This will have to change if the industry expects to be able to lobby effectively.
"We need to look at the big picture. We shouldn't just be looking at getting incentives for grass roots exploration. We need to be striving for a more formal and organized voice for exploration. We need full-time people as well as a well-oiled lobby machine."
Christianson is hopeful that the various regional bodies will start speaking as one solid unit.
"I look for the positive. Perhaps it's just part of being a prospector. But I'd rather talk about ways where we can get wins than to piss and moan over my spilt beer."

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