The Northern Miner, first published in 1915, during the Cobalt Silver Rush, is considered Canada’s leading authority on the mining industry.
Having just recently attended the Precious Metals Summit in Beaver Creek, Colo., and the Denver Gold Show, I was pleased to see that even with dampened enthusiasm on the show floors due to the downward-trending price of gold, there was plenty of good cheer to be found — most notably among my fellow Quebec delegates, excited by the renewed prospects for Plan Nord, the mega-economic development strategy for Quebec’s north that had stalled under the previous Parti-Québecois (PQ) government.
In fact, there was an undeniable perception among the delegates that the new Liberal provincial government’s pledge to revamp Plan Nord (or Plan Nord+, as it’s now being called in some circles) will, at the very least, succeed in stabilizing the mining and exploration sector in Quebec and provide the impetus to stop the province’s continuing slide in the Fraser Institute’s annual global mining survey.
From 2007 to 2009, Quebec ranked first in the survey, then dropped to fifth in 2011, 11th in 2012 and finally 21st in 2013, due largely to changes in Quebec’s mining and tax policies under the PQ government.
Plan Nord is the economic development strategy launched by the Liberal government of Premier Jean Charest in May 2011 to develop the natural resources sector north of the 49th parallel in Quebec. The 25-year plan was intended to foster nearly $80 billion in energy, mining, and forestry investments and create quality jobs and infrastructure development.
As the centrepiece of the previous Liberal government’s political legacy, Plan Nord had received the full support of the mining industry, as well as the endorsement of most of the region’s First Nations.
However, with the election of the PQ in late 2012, Pauline Marois’ administration repositioned and re-branded many of the Plan Nord ideas. They even renamed Plan Nord as “Nord Pour Tous” (“North For Everyone”) in an effort to fend off opposition by environmentalist groups in the province.
The unfortunate reality is that the PQ’s downplaying — if not outright dismissal — of Plan Nord along with some ill-advised tinkering with the mining tax regime, led to Quebec becoming a less attractive global mining jurisdiction and fed into the general unease caused by the worldwide mining markets slowdown. It was, indeed, a blessing for some key junior exploration companies in the province that alternative financing solutions, such as the flow-through share donation program, were in existence to help keep at least some capital flowing in an extremely tight market.
However, the election in April 2014 of a new majority Liberal government under Philippe Couillard has brightened the future of the Quebec mining and resource sector.
Plan Nord+
Specifically, under Plan Nord+ the new Quebec government has already committed nearly $5 billion in new funds to develop renewable energy sources north of the 49th parallel and $33 billion for investment in the mining sector, including building infrastructure such as roads, rail lines and airports.
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