Natural Resources Committee on Oct. 19th, 2011

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Good afternoon, everyone. We're here today to continue our study of resource development in northern Canada.

Just before we get to the witnesses, I understand Mr. Gravelle would like to introduce a gentleman who is going be a permanent member of the committee.

Go ahead, Mr. Gravelle.

[Claude Gravelle, NDP, Nickel Belt, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'd just like to inform the committee that Mr. Kennedy Stewart is going to be our permanent member of this committee from now on. Mr. Saganash had to leave the committee, so Kennedy is going to replace him permanently. Thank you.

[Some hon. members]

Hear, hear!

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Welcome to our committee. We look forward to having you here.

We'll now get to the witnesses from the Department of Natural Resources. I understand we have just one presentation today. Is that correct? So we'll be getting to questions and comments quite quickly. We have, from the Department of Natural Resources, Brian Gray, assistant deputy minister, earth sciences sector; David Scott, director, Geological Survey of Canada, northern Canada division; John Percival, program manager, geomapping for energy; and Linda Richard, coordinator, geomapping for energy and minerals.

Welcome to all of you. Thank you very much for taking the time to be here today. I'm looking forward to your presentation; then we'll get directly to questions and comments.

Go ahead, please.

[Dr. Brian Gray, Assistant Deputy Minister, Earth Sciences Sector, Department of Natural Resources]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I am neither a geologist nor a specialist in the field, but fortunately, I am accompanied today by three geology experts.

Allow me to make a presentation before the question period.

I'll go to page 2, a very brief history. The Geological Survey of Canada has been around for 169 years; it predates Confederation. We have not been with the organization quite that long, but some of us have had a few years in it. We provide Canada with a comprehensive geoscience knowledge base, contributing to economic development, public safety, and environmental protection. Those are the three pillars of how we operate. We acquire, interpret, and disseminate geoscience information concerning Canada's land mass, including the offshore.

We go to page 3. GEM is an acronym that we use. GEM translates in both official languages.

In French, GEM stands for “géocartographie de l'énergie et des minéraux”.

In English it's geomapping for energy and minerals. So if it pleases you, I will use the acronym GEM for the remainder of the presentation.

The GEM program is part of the third pillar of Canada’s Northern Strategy which is to promote social and economic development so that northerners have greater control over their destiny. By providing new knowledge on land and water, GEM will identify the energy and mineral resources potential in the north that will allow industry to target its activities while also helping to provide better employment opportunities for northerners. The GEM program provides fundamental geoscientific knowledge to support informed land-use decisions that will have an impact on resource development in the north.

On page 4, we learn that in 2008, Prime Minister Harper announced that the federal government would invest in the GEM program. We are in year four of a five-year program that is part of an ambitious plan to complete the geo-mapping of the north to modern standards. The program promotes economic growth and reinforces Canada’s competitiveness in the worldwide search for resources.

As part of Canada's Economic Action Plan, GEM accelerated its ambitious airborne geophysical data acquisition project that helped to sustain the geophysical services industry during the economic downturn and resulted in investment optimization. Because data were released within six months of collection, industry quickly showed a great deal of interest.

On page 5, the main points I'd like to make are the collaboration among the provinces, territories, the federal government, and our stakeholders. I understand that ADM Anil Arora was in front of this group a couple of weeks ago, so he's covered most of this.

I would like to draw your attention to the shared responsibilities, the box in the middle. Under the shared responsibilities, the intergovernmental geoscience accord is a ministerial-level agreement on roles and responsibilities. It sets principles for collaboration, and the ideas of these shared responsibilities include management of common data and information.

The first IGA, or intergovernmental geoscience accord, was signed in 1996 and it's a five-year accord. The most recent was signed in 2007 and will be renewed in early 2012.

The second point I want to draw your attention to is the advisory group of northerners. This group provides advice to the GEM program from a northern perspective regarding community engagement during project development and planning, delivery, and communications of results. It includes representatives from aboriginal communities and associations, territorial governments, education institutions, and the northern exploration community.

If we can move on to page 6, this map represents a starting point for the GEM program in 2008, and there are three points I'd like to make on the slide. The first, if you have colour copies, is the green area, and if you don't have a colour copy it would be the darker, shaded area. These areas prior to the GEM program had enough geological information for industry to engage in exploration and development.

The areas in what I'll call purple--I don't know quite what that colour is but the other colour that's not green--are areas we did not have adequate modern geomapping for. The second point about that purple-coloured area is that it represents about 60% of north of 60. So about 60% of the area had not been mapped to modern standards before this program.

The third point is, as you would expect, that most of the known resource potential, most of the mining activity, has occurred and is in the process of occurring in those green shaded areas because there was adequate information for industry to take the risk to explore and to develop.

So we can move to page 7. What I've tried to do here is make the point that we did not intend to map the remainder of this 60% in this five-year process. We took the best available information. We worked with the industries, we worked with the advisory groups, and we targeted areas based on proximity to known resources or based on our collective expert knowledge, and these areas we depicted in ellipses are the areas we targeted for the GEM program.

You could see another point here: the broad geographic distribution of GEM projects reflects the geological diversity of Canada's north and corresponding potential for a wide variety of mineral and energy resources. This is a vast area to survey. The current range of investigations is contributing to the identification of new gold and precious metals, diamond-bearing kimberlites, accumulations of oil and natural gas, uranium, as well as base metals such as copper, zinc, nickel, iron, and lead.

Our work is also uncovering the potential for less common deposit-like types that include the rare earths or high-tech metals.

Later in this presentation I want to walk through three examples of where we've gone in, what the situation was before and after, and the industry uptake. If you look on page 7, there are three red stars. Those are the three examples I'll walk you through in a couple of slides from now.

Turn to page 8. As I said, the Geological Survey of Canada is an old institution. The first true geological mapping of the north started in the 1950s, and this was led by the availability of technology. For the first time there were light helicopters and light fixed-wing aircraft that could land directly on the tundra or on the ice. Applying these techniques to mapping was a great leap forward.

Just prior to this technology, we really couldn't get up there to explore. These major operations were basically a case of geologists going up for a long period of time—essentially spending the summer up there—and heli-hopping from one area to the other, or “heli-traversing”. In these areas they made direct observations, and then they would get up and fly ten or fifteen kilometres and make other observations. It was really a reconnaissance-level mapping exercise, using the best technology at the time.

I'd like to emphasize that in the 1950s through the early 1970s, when they were doing this, this was state of the art. We were at the frontier internationally in this geological science. If you look back on it now, it looks fairly simplistic or primitive, but I want to assure you that at the time, in the day, this was innovative, ground-breaking stuff. And many of our scientists put their lives on the line, because it was very precarious to go heli-hopping for a summer up there.

That's a little bit of history. Now we move to page 9.

These are the technical advances. Today we use modern tools to collect and distribute information beyond the typical bedrock geology mapping. So we are better understanding through evidence.

The modern mapping methods provide digital information distributed freely via the Internet. For example, here is some of the technology we're using: airborne geophysical surveys measure physical properties of the bedrock from the aircraft, such as a helicopter or a light fixed-wing aircraft; the aircraft flies back and forth over the land along parallel lines spaced about 400 metres apart, and the aircraft is about 150 metres off the ground. Down on the field level, we have field data collected by geologists using hand-held devices with pinpoint GPS accuracy. In the old days it was a case of “march 20 paces north of this area and 20 paces to the left, and you'll find....” This is pinpointed to the centimetre.

We also have, back here in Ottawa, modern laboratory work, which is done in the Geological Survey's research lab, such as the sensitive high-resolution ion microprobe lab, also known as the SHRIMP lab. That is truly a marvel of science, that lab and what they can do there.

At the far side of page 9 you'll see several layers of maps. What we're trying to depict there is that this includes layers, including the bedrock geology, which was the only layer of information we had previously. Now we're looking at surficial geology, at geophysics, geochemistry, geochronology, and mineral showings.

The first example I have, on page 10, is from southeastern Baffin Island. To orient you, if you look in the upper left-hand corner, that's Pangnirtung, I believe.

There are a couple of points to make on this slide. GEM tackled this remote and unexplored part of Cumberland Peninsula of eastern Baffin Island, where the knowledge base was rudimentary. What you're seeing on the slide is essentially provided from the survey work that was done in that first tranche from the 1950s through the 1970s. Few details were available on this bedrock geology map. This is essentially the “pre-” data that we had before GEM. Historically, up until the GEM program, there had been very little exploration activity in this region by the private sector.

Let us go to page 11. The new geological database was acquired through targeted fieldwork, geophysics, and analytical support in 2009 and 2010. This integrated map, produced from multiple layers of information, reveals a geological framework completely different from what was expected from the sparse information you saw on the previous page. The mineral potential now can be properly assessed based on a comprehensive understanding of the geological environments of Cumberland Peninsula.

The knowledge upgrade is published and fully available. We release the information simultaneously to the public in what we call open data files. To create the information based on the science that was done here we created 24 open data files, which included 18 geophysical maps, three geological maps, and three geochemical data releases.

Moving from that to the next slide, page 12, within months of GEM's presentation of this information via the open files I just mentioned, technical reports, and presentation by our scientists at professional conferences and trade shows, the entire area was acquired under prospecting permits for diamond, gold, and base metal exploration.

Active exploration programs operated in 2010 and this year, and to date approximately $670,000 has been invested by the exploration company in the Cumberland area.

I pointed out Pangnirtung. We also had the Pangnirtung residents involved. We trained some and employed some in the GEM program. They were involved in that program, and my understanding is that some of these folks are involved with the industry exploration programs.

And so, we find a second example on page 13. The words “rare earth” refer to a particular group of metals whose properties can be used in high-end technology applications such as semi-conductors, cell phones etc.

The Strange Lake rare earth deposit located in a remote area east of Schefferville was discovered long ago but its enormous regional potential had remained unknown until now.

Before GEM, regional data on the area south of the Strange Lake deposit was insufficient to allow industry to discover new sites.

Nevertheless, we estimate that there is great resource potential in this area. The provinces of Quebec and Newfoundland and Labrador have a joint project to collect layers of geoscientific data on the underexploited region east of Schefferville, in Quebec.

GEM’s contribution has taken the form of a series of high resolution data obtained by airborne geophysical survey and published March 8, 2010. The survey revealed that the Strange Lake area that had already been identified as being mineral rich extended south. Ultimately, 46 public records were released.

GEM has created a modern geoscientific database that quickly attracted great interest in the industry. Soon after the release of the data, a prospector detected an anomaly at Michikamat and the same week, he staked off the area. On April 6, 2010, the prospector sold his mineral rights to the Fieldex Exploration Company. This is a Quebec-based mining company specialized in rare earth elements. The anomaly was detected because of our data.

Soon after, a second company, Midland Exploration, acquired the mineral rights in another area in which important rare earth elements, named Ytterby 4 by the company, were found.

Evidence of the mineralization of rare earths is thin. Concentrations as low as 1% can have high economic potential. Companies use various means to target geophysical and geological exploration activities in the bedrock, geological and geochemical exploration activities on the surface and finally, geochronological exploration activities.

Our partners, Quebec and Newfoundland and Labrador have, for their part, contributed other types of data, for example, geological maps, and geochemical and geochronological data.

We'll move to page 15. The third and final example is western Melville Peninsula. This is an area of nickel potential.

Now, the previous sporous bedrock geology data for Melville Peninsula did not provide an adequate base for mineral exploration. GEM undertook regional mapping in a large area of prospective units with high nickel potential, which was identified based on new comprehensive bedrock geology, geophysics, geochemical, and geochronological information.

Finally, industry has responded quickly, including the mining giant Vale.

We will move to slide 16.

The integration of multiple data sets led to the identification of a geological environment of the right age and composition on a regional scale to host nickel deposits. Prospecting permits were acquired for a large area of western Melville in February of this year, following the release of GEM products late in 2010.

A new set of mineral claims was staked in August as a result of 2011 industry field work. The entry of global nickel powerhouse Vale in this region is attributed to GEM's identification of the previously unrecognized potential of nickel deposits on the west coast of the peninsula. Their interest is a strong signal that this region has a significant upside potential.

I will move on to page 17.

Working with northern suppliers is a priority for the GEM program to ensure that whenever possible the services of northern companies and individuals are employed to help carry out our work. It's common sense. These are people who know the area, know the terrain, and have the equipment to do the work. Commonly used services we've listed there include transportation--air and ground, but quite a bit of it is air, and it's very expensive, as you can imagine--logistics, fuel, wildlife monitors for our programs, field assistants, food and camp supplies, local accommodations, professional services, etc.

We depend on people who live and know the north to provide our logistical support for field operations. In doing so, we are providing direct benefits, we feel, to the communities as well as preparing these northerners for future economic opportunities.

We now turn to page 18.

In collaboration with Canadian universities, GEM is preparing the next generation of geoscientists who are already gaining experience in the north.

Thanks to the research affiliate program, dozens of students are contributing to and benefiting from GEM’s work.

GEM also strives to employ members of local communities while contributing to the establishment, in the north, of a group of skilled workers in the fields of geo-mapping and mining exploration and exploitation.

Let us now turn to page 19.

Thanks to its modern geoscientific database, GEM is promoting the exploration of new regions in the north. GEM's accomplishments are presented in Appendix 1.

We are constantly discovering new regions whose resource potential has remained unknown until today. Because of GEM, northerners are able to make informed decisions concerning their economic and social future.

In the longer term, other important advantages will result from subsequent job creation in the private sector as well as from sustainable economic development. For example, geoscientific data that had been released in the past were a deciding factor in the exploitation of the Meadowbank mine in Nunavut.

We expect the GEM program to have other similar impacts in the future.

Mr. Chair, my presentation is over.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Mr. Gray, thank you for your presentation.

Today we have Garry Breitkreuz, who is the member for Yorkton—Melville. When I saw mention of the nickel deposits on western Melville Island, I know he was already figuring out how he was going to annex it, because of the name.

There's a colour-coded map on page 11 and there is colour coding on some other pages too. Could you quickly explain what the colour coding means, on page 11, for example?

[Dr. Brian Gray]

Yes, it's specific to the map. I'll turn it over to John, who's the right person for the colour coding.

[John Percival, Program Manager, Geomapping for Energy, Department of Natural Resources]

The colours correspond to different rock units. It's the product of our geological mapping. We identify the rocks. The substance of geological maps is to identify the types of rock units.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

It's the actual rock units. Thank you very much.

We'll go directly to questions and comments.

Mr. Trost, you have up to seven minutes, please.

[Bradley Trost, Conservative, Saskatoon—Humboldt, SK]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses for coming here.

I'm going to start with some general questions, and then as we go on they'll become more defined.

I note that you said “when we get to sufficient mapping”. I thought it was an interesting turn of phrase. I remember what my structural geology professor taught me when he taught mapping. He said no geological map is ever a hundred percent right, including ones that he had produced. There's never a point where we're a hundred percent sure on everything.

I understand that a project gets to a point where the private sector takes over. I would say it's sufficient and it's proven by an economic test. But how do we decide and allocate what is sufficient? It would be helpful to decide if this program needs to be continued past 2013. What is the test you use to decide when it's sufficient and when it can be turned over to the private sector to do more in-depth surveys and mapping?

[Dr. Brian Gray]

I'll start. It's an excellent question.

In the examples we gave we tried to highlight the fact that there had not been exploration in these areas. We obviously felt there was sufficient information on these three examples where the risk was less risky. Industry then went in and did some exploration.

We're in year four of a five-year program. We are in the process of evaluating the uptake. I may be wrong, but I don't imagine that every one of these areas will have a rapid uptake.

On the logistics of working in the north, unlike the south, there are no roads. You can't drive to these places. You organize the logistics to get to these places, recognizing that you're working against mother nature all the time and recognizing that it's dark for six months of the year in many of these places.

[Bradley Trost, Conservative, Saskatoon—Humboldt, SK]

But how do you determine the criteria for what is sufficient?

[David J. Scott, Director, Geological Survey of Canada Northern Canada Division, Department of Natural Resources]

Thank you.

The degree to which the resolution is sufficient is really one that comes from our experience in providing regional or framework scale maps, as we call them, across the north and in the southern parts of the country.

Our experience has shown that preliminary maps, where direct observations were made every several kilometres or tens of kilometres, will guide us to the basic building blocks. For industry to step up, they need to be able to test hypotheses without leaving their offices. Each type of mineral deposit or energy deposit has its own recipe, if you will. If they can't see the building blocks of the recipe in existing public maps, it's difficult for them to make a business case to go there to explore.

Our experience has shown that we need to provide direct data and direct observations every kilometre, every half a kilometre, or every few hundreds of metres. It allows us to illustrate the geology in sufficient detail for private sector explorers to put a hypothesis together that's backed by a business case that investors will fund for them to go to a basically unexplored area with sufficient resolution to test a specific hypothesis about a shear zone-hosted gold deposit or a particular type of zinc deposit. It's based on our experience.

I suspect your geology professor was correct. You can always go back to look and add more detail. Our maps are interpretations. They're not absolute fact. You can go back and zoom in forever. We have to draw the line at a particular scale. It's the threshold where industry can step up and make private sector investments in development.

[Bradley Trost, Conservative, Saskatoon—Humboldt, SK]

That's when they would send people like me into the field.

What I also want to know is this. It's been pointed out that the knowledge of geology is a strategic advantage. Compared with other major countries in the world, what does our level of mapping or expertise from the Geological Survey, projects like GEM, and our public database of geological information give to Canada when it comes to attracting mineral investment, against countries like Russia, Australia, Africa, or Latin America? Could you comment on that? What's our comparative advantage in light of this?

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Go ahead, Mr. Scott.

[David J. Scott]

Thank you.

Geological knowledge and its public availability is one of the factors. Others include political stability and certainty of economic rights, mineral rights that won't disappear with the government.

[Bradley Trost, Conservative, Saskatoon—Humboldt, SK]

Are we competitive with other first world countries? Are we better than other first world countries? How much of an advantage does this give us against places like Africa, where they do not have well-developed national geological surveys?

[David J. Scott]

I would suggest that we're somewhere in the middle. Our main competitive countries are places like Australia and Mexico, where the state of adequate geoscience knowledge is advanced relative to Canada's. We're further ahead than many other countries. But owing to the sheer size of Canada and the logistical difficulties of working in remote areas of the country, particularly in the north, we're not quite where we need to be from a private sector investment perspective.

The vast majority of the rest of Canada is covered to more or less adequate standards for investment. The remaining part of Canada is not yet up to that standard. Where areas are up to standard, we have seen significant private sector investment, including from the international community. We've seen significantly less exploration investment, sometimes none, in those inadequately mapped areas.

So I think there's a fairly good correlation between the degree of adequate mapping in the public domain and the ability to have that risk factor removed from the overall equation. The knowledge risk is what we buy down with our geological mapping.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Thank you, Mr. Trost.

We go now to the official opposition and Monsieur Gravelle.

[Claude Gravelle, NDP, Nickel Belt, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair,

I'm glad you are here, Dr. Gray, because at our last meeting your name came up several times as the only person who could answer the questions I'm about to ask. I hope that person was correct.

[Dr. Brian Gray]

So do I.

[Claude Gravelle, NDP, Nickel Belt, ON]

My first question concerns the $100 million over the next five years for geomapping. Can you break that $100 million down, and can you tell us who is getting what and how much?

[Dr. Brian Gray]

First of all, let's look at it as an annual expenditure over the five years. Our projected budget for 2008-09 was around $11 million. We ramped up in 2009-10 to $26.5 million. In 2010-11, it was $20 million. This fiscal year it's projected to be $17 million and then $17 million in 2012-13.

The figures I'm going to give you now aren't precise, but in expectation of this question, we did the best we could. The plan for GEM was to apply about 75% of the expenditures north of 60 and about 25% south. In the Yukon, the total expenditure over the course of this five years will be $15.6 million of the $100 million; the Northwest Territories, $26.4 million; Nunavut, $38.6 million; British Columbia, $1.7 million; Quebec, $2.9 million; Newfoundland and Labrador, $2.3 million; Saskatchewan, $1 million; and Manitoba, $1.2 million. These are the best estimates I can get you at this stage.

[Claude Gravelle, NDP, Nickel Belt, ON]

Can you give me the current status of the program's development and findings today?

[Dr. Brian Gray]

Yes. If we turn to the annex, appendix 1, I gave you three examples of projects where we released the open data files, which include chemistry information, traditional sorts of geomapping, bedrock geology, and include surficial geology. Those three, collectively, are about 114 open files. To date, we have released 424. What we've just walked through is about a quarter of what we've released to date. But we are at the end of the fourth field season. I'll have to turn to Linda or John, but I would expect we have a lot of releases that are going to be happening following this field season.

John.