Finance committee  Thank you.

Finance committee  It's always important for Canada in terms of how it stands in the global market. As I say, I understand the issues, and I understand that what you're talking about is investing. The issue is, if I don't invest today, it's not as if I can replace it tomorrow. It's a long-term game

Finance committee  Again, the METC actually helps us make jobs, and it develops us, so it is a payback. I think it is wrong to think of it as a cost to the government. I think if we looked at the return that the government gets, we can see that it is not a cost to the government. If we want to be n

Finance committee  As for where we see the issues, on our side we're looking at the exploration side. We're looking at our geologists and basically the whole engineering side. What you have is a very experienced group that is slowly moving on, and it's a challenge to build those additional resource

Finance committee  A lot of those programs have to be funded by the companies themselves, so they have developed training programs. What's happening is that the various associations are trying to bring in standard programs that can be used by various industries to help develop the skills of the abo

Finance committee  Well, some of those.... Again, that was a broad industry. As I say, your diamond industry was in fact found through the flow-through share mechanism, and that's up and running and contributing significant dollars. There have been success stories as we've gone along, but as I say,

Finance committee  Perhaps the easiest would be just to look at where it has been successful. For an example, let's take a couple of Inuit bands in Newfoundland and Labrador that have received cheques in excess of $100 million just in this last year as a result of the Voisey's Bay discovery. Take B

Finance committee  To be honest, for the actual stage of exploration—because you're going to have your grassroots exploration and then you're going to get into pre-feasibility studies—it is not unlikely that it would take at least seven years to determine that you have a reserve in order to bring i

Finance committee  Yes.

Finance committee  As a point of clarification for the members who aren't familiar with this, the METC only provides a credit for exploration activity within Canada, so it won't have an impact on those companies that operate outside of Canada. In terms of its significance and really what it is, i

Finance committee  The reality is that it would impact the investment. Would it be significant to deter...? I would suspect not.

Finance committee  We believe that the government has a role to play in contributing to the stability of this sector. The METC, introduced in 2000, has consistently provided Canada with one of our competitive advantages and helps to provide Canadians with attractive domestic investment opportunitie

Finance committee  Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and committee members. My name is Tom King. I would like thank you for the invitation to appear before this committee and offer comments on proposed measures for inclusion in the 2013 federal budget on behalf of the Prospectors and Developers Associatio