Good afternoon, Mr. Chair, and committee members. Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today. My name is Lesley Williams, and I am the senior manager of aboriginal and regulatory affairs at the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada. My colleague, Matthew Pickard, is a PDAC member, and a member of our lands and regulations committee. He will introduce himself shortly.
We speak to you on behalf of the 8,000 members of the PDAC, the national voice of Canada's mineral exploration and development industry. We are pleased to provide input on behalf of the mineral industry as you complete your current study, a review of changes to the Fisheries Act.
Our presentation will cover a discussion of the exploration phase of the mineral development cycle; key elements of effective, efficient, balanced regulatory processes; the exploration sector's experiences with the Fisheries Act; and ways in which the 2012 changes helped to strike a balance between generating certainty for industry and sustaining protection of fish and fisheries. Matthew will then guide us through his company's experiences with the Fisheries Act.
Canada is a recognized world leader in the minerals and metals industry, which directly employs 380,000 Canadians and contributes nearly 3.5% of the GDP. In particular, Canada is renowned for its mineral exploration expertise. Mineral exploration is akin to looking for a needle in a haystack. Junior explorers, thousands of small entrepreneurial companies across Canada, often take on this riskiest stage of the mineral development cycle. Less than one in 1,000 exploration programs will make a discovery leading to mine development.
As a result of the prolonged downturn in financing, mineral exploration expenditures have fallen globally. In Canada, expenditures have fallen 66% since 2011. Canada also fell to second place, behind Australia, for the first time in 15 years as the top destination for exploration investment.
Our ability to regain first place is contingent upon a number of factors that affect the decisions made by CEOs about where to do exploration. These include geological potential, social or political risks, and access to land. Issues that impact access to land include the availability of infrastructure, land withdrawals, unsettled land claims, lack of clarity regarding the crown's duty to consult process, and regulatory uncertainty and inefficiency.
The issue of regulatory affairs brings us to the topic of today's study. At this point, I will hand over the presentation to my colleague Matthew, who will discuss the changes made as a result of the 2012 amendments and the impact of those changes on the industry.