Finance committee  I just wanted to make one additional comment that in general a tax credit is not a tax break. It's a tax incentive for investors. It's a tax credit for investors in the junior sector, and that is an important distinction, because these companies are undertaking a very high-risk a

Finance committee  It's all exploration that's happening on the ground in Canada, so large companies can take advantage of that as well, but it's specifically for grassroots, early-stage exploration activities.

Finance committee  To be clear, what we're speaking about here is the smaller, junior to medium-sized companies. We're not talking about 50% of the total revenue that would be generated from flow-through shares. We're talking about making 10% to 15% allowable for other expenses. Specifically, while

Finance committee  That's correct. What happens is junior companies can go out and raise flow-through money but they can't actually get access to the land because they don't have the capital to go and actually do their consultations with aboriginal communities and pay legal and other compliance cos

Finance committee  It would all be included under the.... Do you mean additional costs? We don't have specific statistics on that, but I would argue that it wouldn't be a cost at all, because it would result in increased fundraising and actual investment and exploration on the ground. As I said, a

Finance committee  Yes, absolutely. That does create uncertainty. Exploration requires a commitment on planning as well as execution. It takes a long time to explore for deposits. So having certainty around that tax credit would be very helpful. We'd certainly like to see it extended, but as Pierre

Finance committee  Good afternoon, Mr. Chair. I serve on the board of directors of the PDAC and I am executive chairman and director of Stornoway Diamond Corporation, which is a Canadian diamond exploration company working all across the country, with an advanced project in Quebec that we hope wil

Finance committee  Absolutely. It is an investment in the future. Further to Mr. Laforest's comment about our competitiveness, for 25 years mineral reserves in Canada have been on the decline, so despite the fact that we've had quite strong commodity prices, minus the last year where we had signif

Finance committee  Yes, further to that, in addition, jurisdictions like the Northwest Territories and Nunavut, which don't have the ability to bump up on the flow-through credit, would really benefit from this increase because it would put them on a more competitive playing field with some of the

Finance committee  I'll just comment that exploration takes a long time. For diamonds in particular, it could be seven to 10 years before you know whether you have an economic project. So for us to have the assurance that we could go back to the market year after year and raise funds on the basis o

Finance committee  Thank you very much. I'm very pleased to be here on behalf of the PDAC and the Canadian exploration sector. Mining is a globally competitive business. Canadian exploration companies can and do explore for minerals all over the world. In response to the impact of the financial