Invest in geologists for the long term

There’s a patriotic truism abroad these days: Canadians are the world’s foremost mine finders. Is this really true?

In fact, the system that developed field geologists in this country in the past has broken down. If we are expert explorationists now, we won’t be for long. We are no longer teaching, training and employing geologists and technicians in sufficient numbers; the exploration group is dwindling and aging.

In the 1960s and 1970s, by the time you got your BSc in Geology you could easily have had two summers in the bush, and could be a competent senior field assistant. Within a couple a years, you could reasonably expect to get a full-time position as a project manager with a senior or junior mining company, and make a career of it (if your knees let you). With a higher degree you could hope for employment at a provincial or federal government survey or at a university.

There were redundancies in the system: it was not lean and mean. But there were a lot of people in the field every season, walking the ground, mapping, sampling and surveying… and learning. There were experts to consult in the governments and universities. There were investors putting up the money.

It took this whole network of activity to attract the funds and the brains needed to develop Canada’s world-leading geophysical and geochemical entrepreneurial firms. And having a large part of the world’s continental mass as a ‘playground’ didn’t hurt. THAT is what led to Canada’s expertise in finding mineral deposits.

Today, the system is weak in every limb.

The provincial and federal government surveys are no longer doing the amount and quality of field work that they used to, because of chopped budgets going back many years. Some are coming up with money to fly surveys or keep prospectors afloat, but that does not replace the expertise they used to deliver.

There are relatively small numbers of students in Geology at colleges and universities. Despite their small numbers, many of today’s students graduate without having had any field jobs, and don’t even know if they want to try one.

Almost all major mining companies have disbanded their exploration departments, and closed many of their regional offices. They prefer to let the junior companies take the risks on grassroots exploration. However, the investors are not supporting the juniors, so there is a dearth of new prospects coming to light. (The notable exceptions are in the diamond and platinum group metals sectors, but I wonder how many ‘new’ PGM properties are recycled base metal projects.)

I am not pining for the flighty days of flow-through funding in the late 1980s, when money was too easily available. It resulted in properties that should not have been drilled, mines that should never have opened, and a tarnishing of our industry’s reputation. The federal government recently announced new tax incentives for investors, dubbed “super flow-through shares”, that should put some money back into circulation. But you can’t turn on the tap and expect geologists to have been waiting for a decade, ready to fly into action.

We need long-term funding of exploration departments in large and small companies as well as government surveys. In such stable environments, experience and expertise can be passed to younger team members and new ideas floated back. Whether or not Canada is a world leader is unimportant, but we should make sure Canadian exploration teams can continue to find mines on our own turf.