Let me first thank you for inviting me not only to this prestigious event but also to Nova Scotia and the beautiful city of Halifax. I spent seven wonderful years in this city and there is a very warm spot in my heart for Nova Scotia, its scenery and its people!

 

As we approach the 21st century, let's look at the world in which we live and within which Canada's mining industry operates. Recent economic developments are having a negative impact on our industry. Our economy and our currency are being affected by increasing global uncertainty.

 

Let's start by looking at how mining works for our economy. Despite the current, and hopefully temporary, woes of the global economy, Canada's has a well-established mining industry. This is reflected in the direct and indirect contribution of the minerals and metals industry to the Canadian economy.

 

 

In 1997, the mining and mineral processing industries contributed $26.2 billion to the Canadian economy (of which $367 million were directed at the Nova Scotia economy), an amount equal to 3.8% of the national Gross Domestic Product. Canada remains one of the world's largest mineral exporters, with approximately 80 percent of minerals and metal products, valued at $44.4 billion, produced for the export market. In total, Canada's minerals and metals exports represent 15 percent of total domestic exports, and 26 percent of Canada's 1997 trade surplus.

 

 

Mining is the mainstay of employment in over 128 communities, mostly in rural and remote areas of Canada. The industry directly employs 368,000 Canadians in 750 establishments across Canada. In Nova Scotia, about 2500 people are employed directly in mining. The industry pays $4.4 billion in direct annual wages. Average weekly earnings in the metal mining sector are $1084, one of the highest levels of any industry in Canada. These wages beat the forestry sector by approximately $220 a week!

 

However, the industry's importance reaches beyond exports and the direct employment of 368,000 Canadians. More than 600 domestic consulting services and equipment companies earn in excess of 30 percent of their revenues by supplying Canadian mining companies in more than 100 countries.

 

Let's also look at the metal recycling industry. The Canadian scrap metal recycling industry comprises over 1,000 companies and provides direct employment to approximately 20,000 people.

 

Exploration spending in Canada totaled $804 million in 1997, $9 million of which were invested in Nova Scotia (up from $6.9 million in 1996).

 

 

Canada is also fast becoming the world's mining center. More than half of the world's mining analysts work in Canada. In fact, several banks including First Boston, Credit Suisse, and Deutsche Morgan, have relocated their mining finance portfolios to Canada. Today, the shares of more than 300 mining companies are traded on the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSE), accounting for 27 percent of trading volume in 1997, valued at $69 billion. Trading activity is not limited to the TSE. In 1997, the Vancouver Stock Exchange (VSE) had 861 mining listings (60 percent of total). The Alberta Stock Exchange (ASE) had 174, or 17 percent of ASE total listings, while the Montreal Stock Exchange (MSE) had over 50 companies, representing nearly 20 percent of the total $50 billion traded on the MSE in 1997.

 

Impressive numbers aren't they? Who says that mining is a sunset industry! But there is more to mining than numbers. What also makes mining work for Canada is the industry's commitment to environmental excellence and its contribution and use of leading edge technology.

Less than 0.03% of Canada's land area (an area less than half the size of Prince Edward Island) has been used for mining since metal mining began more than 150 years ago. The industry is determined to leave as little a footprint as is necessary on the landscape.

 

 

Best practices for exploration activities call for controlled access and use of the landscape. Development operations include plans that respect habitat and migration requirements of wildlife; activities that encourage energy efficiency and reduction of releases to air and water. Mine closures occur within well-developed reclamation plans designed to return mine sites to viable and, wherever practicable, self-sustaining ecosystems.

 

Most mining companies have environmental policies and management systems that reflect the industry's commitment to sustainable development. Many of them report on their environmental performance in their Annual Reports or in specific Environmental Reports.

 

 

Reducing air emissions is recognized as a priority for the industry. All member companies of the Mining Association of Canada (MAC) who operate smelters in Canada have made a commitment to cut smelter emissions of five key substances (inorganic arsenic compounds; inorganic cadmium compounds; oxidic, sulphidic and soluble inorganic nickel compounds; lead; and mercury) by 80% (of 1988 levels) by 2008 and to reductions of 90% beyond 2008. This commitment is part of the industry's participation in many voluntary and regulatory initiatives. Under ARET (Accelerated Reduction/Elimination of Toxics), it has exceeded its 1994 goal of a 50% reduction of ARET-substances by the year 2000.

 

 

The industry is also involved in revising the Metal Mining Liquid Effluents Regulations and the Environmental Code of Practice for Mines; in developing a national Environment Effects Monitoring program for metal mining and establishing site-specific requirements, if necessary, to protect local receiving environments.

 

 

It has also taken part in the Aquatic Effects Technology Evaluation (AETE) program designed to review appropriate technological tools to assess the impact mine effluents have on the aquatic environment.

 

It has actively participated in research on acid rock drainage. Over $18 million were spent over nine years to advance prediction techniques, water and alternate covers and technology.

 

The Mining Association of Canada has just released a "Guide to the Management of Tailings Facilities". Tailings facilities are a window on the industry. As a result of their size and visibility, they symbolize how the industry manages its activities with regard to environmental protection. The mining industry has the technology and engineering capability to safely design, build, operate and decommission tailings facilities. Its challenge is to consistently apply and manage this technology through the full cycle of a facility. The Guide will help companies develop tailings management systems that include environmental and safety criteria.

 

 

In addition, over the next five years, the industry will spend over $1.5 million dollars on multi-disciplinary research to study the sources, pathways, fate and effects of metals in the environment. Metals are naturally present throughout the Earth in varying concentrations. Their concentration in a particular area may also be the result of human activities. Understanding the sources of metals in the environment, how the metals move and transform within the environment, and how they can affect ecosystems and human health is essential to assessing and managing the risk they may pose.

 

 

Our industry's commitment to environmental excellence and to sustainable development is essential to ensure that indeed Mining Works for Canada.

 

 

But is there a future for mining? Is mining an industry of the past? A grimy, pick-and-shovel operation that hopelessly behind the times?

When experts talk about the "new economy", they refer to knowledge-based industries, to developers and users of leading-edge technology, to fibre optic communications, micro chips and virtual reality. Many people would think that this would automatically cancel out mining as part of the "new economy". But people who know our industry would immediately recognize it as a leader in the new economy.

 

 

Today, 85% of our workforce uses advance technology, including electronics, advanced materials, expert systems, and telecommunications. The old image of miners and prospectors with picks and shovels has been replaced by workers using robotics, computers and the most modern high-tech equipment.

 

 

The mining industry today employs specially equipped planes, helicopters and satellites that can pinpoint mining sites to within a few meters. Prospectors use hand-held locational devices that identify exact positions using satellites.

 

 

Mining companies spend more than $1 billion a year on research and development. As a result, world-leading technologies that allow us to increase efficiency, lower production costs and dramatically improve mine safety and working conditions have been developed. For example, Syncrude Canada has introduced a hydraulic transport system that mixes the oil sand ore with water, turns it into liquid and pumps it to an extraction plant. The innovation allows Syncrude to bypass the mechanically intensive pieces of hardware in the extraction process. It is a lower-cost method of transportation and, from an environmental standpoint, is 15% more energy efficient.

 

 

Meanwhile, Inco, with its partners Dyno Nobel, Tamrock and CANMET, is busy designing the mine of the future. It hopes that, by the beginning of 1999, it will have a test mine ready where development drilling, production drilling, loading and trucking will all be done by remote operations. Twenty years from now, all underground mining operations may well be run by technicians located in a control room on the surface.

 

 

A modified miner's hat is also under development. The hat will have built into it an electronic system that will cut out the noise of drills and other noise pollution.

 

 

In short, Canada's mining industry is very much a high-tech industry - one poised to play an important role in the new economy and to provide young Canadians with the well-paid, knowledge-based jobs of the future.

 

 

Governments have an important role to play also. They need to put in place economic and policy frameworks that encourage our industry to be the best that it can, in Canada and around the world. Regulatory, tax and land use policies must foster a climate that allows for the efficient progression from prospecting to production - one of the key criteria considered by investors when deciding where to seek and support a new mining venture.

 

 

Backed by good government policies and by its own commitment to environmental and technological excellence, mining is well-positioned to become Canada's leading international industry in the next century.

 

 

Does Mining Work for Canada? The answer, in my mind, is a definite yes.

 

Thank you.