Finance committee  I think it's a great use of public dollars, because it's public geoscience. It is looking and doing the base line exploration that gets people in to look at new areas. The new discovery in the Yukon, just as an example, the ATAC discovery, was actually a result of public geosci

Finance committee  Concretely, it means that there's less money available to fund our exploration. In certain sectors, such as the base metals, it's been really hard to raise money at all for those projects. I'll ask Philip to take over; I need a drink of water.

Finance committee  Thank you very much. It was about the border crossing, particularly at Little Gold. That's a big challenge, not only for the tourism industry and for Dawson, where I'm a resident. I care about making sure that we get to travel, but it also has significant impact on the cost for

Finance committee  What do you mean by “on the ground”?

Finance committee  It makes a difference between whether I can go to work or not and whether I can employ people in the community. The program I had in the Yukon this year, where we employed 20 people, I think over 10% were first nations. We wouldn't have done it if we didn't have flow-through on t

Finance committee  Grassroots exploration is full of uncertainties. The people investing need to have faith in the management team, the geologists, and the region where they're doing the exploration. There are no guarantees. It is high-risk capital, but it is what's funding a lot of the economic ac

Finance committee  Yes, absolutely. Without the extra 15%, a lot of investors will pick other sectors. It's a hard market in which to raise money, especially right now. You can look at the junior exploration market and see the value of people's shares without the mineral exploration tax credit. T

Finance committee  Well, in all the northern territories, INAC funds mine training associations. The training associations are independent, but they apply for the INAC funds. Certainly I know in my own business I'd applied for some of those funds through the training association. It's been very suc

Finance committee  Particularly at times when the markets are unstable or jittery, it's hard for an investor to decide to put money into an exploration project. There is risk. You do not know whether that money is going to actually result in a new mine being found and developed. That mineral explor

Finance committee  Yes. Particularly in the north, the costs are very significant of having consultations with first nations, and the standard for environmental base line work is ever-increasing. Having these as eligible costs is quite important to industry. There has been some success with CRA in

Finance committee  We are looking for partnering with industry. Each of our territories in the north has unique needs, and certainly you need to work with the territorial governments. But being available to partner once projects are conceptually developed, to help get that initial capital, is a rea

Finance committee  It certainly is. As a gold producer, we sell our product in U.S. dollars and then convert it to Canadian. We buy our fuel in U.S. dollars and it's converted to Canadian. Our parts often come from the States. So the ever-changing exchange rate certainly causes some problems, parti

Finance committee  I think they certainly have worked with our association, and some of the federal programs have been successful. I think they can focus a few more to assist us, particularly with first nations, because a lot of people in our industry who we're able to hire and are available in the

Finance committee  Yes.

Finance committee  We certainly do have some settled claims, which makes it much easier for mining companies in those areas to work, because there's certainty of tenure. Our first nations are also developing capacity to better communicate with mining companies and come to agreement. We do still h