In Ontario Prospector Fantasy Provincial Land Use Planning Dollars Used to Subsidize Industry Mapping of Mineral Potential

Garry Clark appears to be suffering from a flashback brought on by follies in his long passed youth. If the OPA think that the Land Use Planning dollars will become yet another Operation Treasure hunt subsidy for the industry they will be sadly mistaken.There is a new reality out there Garry. Have another donut.

Ont. plan to save boreal forest could benefit mining industry
Peter Koven , Canwest News Service
Published: Thursday, July 17, 2008

TORONTO - The Ontario government's move to block development of half the province's boreal forest ranks among the biggest land-protection initiatives in recent memory. But in a strange twist, it is also a potential positive for the mining industry.

The details are still hazy, but Premier Dalton McGuinty announced this week that 225,000 square kilometres of the forest would be set aside for tourism and aboriginal use. All industrial development, including logging and mineral exploration, will be banned on the designated land.

Over the next 10 to 15 years, the government will undergo a huge mapping and land-use planning process to identify the places that most need protection.
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In so doing, prospectors are confident they will also find promising mining regions that no one knows about.

"Right now, there's no good mapping in the North outside of some rivers and tributaries," said Garry Clark, executive director of the Ontario Prospectors Association (OPA). "If the government feeds a bunch of data in there and can get us better (drilling) targets, then we're way better off."

He is confident that if the government puts enough money into the initiative, those targets should be found.

"We're not 100 per cent sure they're going to do it properly, so we've got to give it a chance," he said.

All the same, the premier's announcement made some of the mayors of northern mining towns nervous, as they fear any kind of slowdown in activity. Many of them witnessed first-hand the downturn in the forestry sector, which devastated some communities.

But Michael Gravelle, Ontario's minister of northern development and mines, said development should continue at full force. He said all previously approved activities will be allowed to continue, and the amount of land that will remain open for development is still massive.

"It's 225,000 square kilometres, which is one-and-a-half times the size of the Maritimes. It's almost like people don't understand how large the far north 1/8of Ontario 3/8 is," he said in an interview.

Currently, only about three per cent of the boreal area has been staked by prospectors and mining companies, said Chris Hodgson, president of the Ontario Mining Association.

That activity is concentrated in a few large mining camps, especially Sudbury, Timmins and Red Lake. McFauld's Lake (near James Bay) also emerged as a hot area after a discovery by Noront Resources Ltd. last year.

The government is not providing details of what areas will be off-limits to development until the land-use planning process gets underway, and it has a better idea of what needs to be protected.

"In essence, it hasn't been picked. It's 50 per cent, that's it," Gravelle said.

The boreal forest initiative will be introduced along with an overhaul of Ontario's Mining Act, which mining companies and First Nations groups alike have criticized for a lack of clarity.