Mining needs gov't support to innovate, says franco-nevada chair.

• Author: Migneault, Jonathan

The mining industry lacks the government support needed to innovate, said Pierre Lassonde, chairman of Franco-Nevada Corporation. Lassonde addressed issues Canada's mining sector faces at a Nov. 6 talk at Laurentian Laurentian University.

"The Ontario government blew $300 million on MaRS (Discovery District) here in Toronto for high technology that has gone nowhere, producing nothing;" Lassonde said in a phone interview with Northern Ontario Business.

"Why don't you invest that money in exploration and find billion-dollar are bodies that are going to produce a billion dollars' worth of taxes?"

Lassonde said there have not been any major technological breakthroughs in the mining sector since the 1980s. While machinery has got bigger and more efficient, and exploration techniques have got more refined, nothing has changed dramatically, he said.

"We're reaching the limit of many of the technologies we've been using for the past 50 years," Lassonde said.

The advent of reflection seismology in oil exploration increased the rate of new discoveries from one for every 10 drill holes, to seven for every 10 drill holes, added Lassonde, but there has been no such advancement in mining exploration. In fact, the rate of new mining discoveries has been falling steadily over the past 40 years, he said.

In the Sudbury Basin, companies like Vale and Glencore are researching ultra-deep mining technologies to access ore bodies at depths beyond 2,500 metres and extend current mining operations. Lassonde said Canada could take lessons from Australia where the government invests in more mining research and development, and the regulatory system is more streamlined. In Canada, he said, a new mine can require up to 245 permits before it goes into production.

"The industry could do a lot more if it had the right amount of support," Las-sonde...