A 10-year vision for mining: mineral exploration gets a boost from provincial strategy.

• Author: Ross, Ian
• Position: MINING

The province is throwing a lifeline to the struggling mineral exploration sector with the establishment of a $5-million junior exploration assistance fund to support grassroots projects.

The one-year program was the centre piece of the province's launch of its new 10-year Mineral Development Strategy, revealed in Sudbury on Dec. 11.

"I've petitioned for this for a year and a half," said Garry Clark, executive director of the Ontario Prospectors Association (OPA), who was on hand to watch Northern Development and Mines Minister Michael Gravelle roll out the strategy at Dynamic Earth before an audience of provincial bureaucrats, institutional researchers and industry reps.

Delivered through the Northern Ontario Heritage Fund, Clark said what the program amounts to is a 30 per cent rebate program for dollars spent on exploration, said Clark.

It keeps Ontario on par with what other provinces offer for early stage exploration and is designed to spur the first-stage activity that leads to the discovery of new deposits and mines.

The assistance fund revives a provincial program that ran until the mid to late 1990s when it was discontinued.

"At that time we really didn't need it," said Clark, "and there were austerity programs going on in government."

Past program funding was applied in the Hemlo gold camp, the Timmins-Kirkland Lake belt, and led to a gold discovery near Fort Frances where mine construction is underway by New Gold.

With no indication of when the exploration financing climate will improve, Clark hopes the fund has some longevity beyond its current one-year shelf life.

"Right now, the industry is at such a low ebb, this is going to attract people to come back to the province."

Josh Bailey, exploration vice-president of Wallbridge Mining, said the program is good for supporting early stage exploration, "the most difficult work to finance right now."

The Sudbury junior miner recently wrapped up production at its Broken Hammer open-pit copper-PGM mine, a short-term project that generated $3.2 million in profits through nine months of operation.

With access to financing so tight, Bailey said the company has resorted to raising capital for its Sudbury basin projects outside of the traditional markets through partnerships, such as with South Africa's Lonmin, to conduct exploration drilling on its Parkin Offset Dyke property.

The province's messaging with its "blueprint for the industry's growth" is that it will set the bar high in...