PDAC e-News and Activities, May 28, 2003, No. 10
Page Index
Securities Committee focuses on
regulatory reform
Board approves study on regulatory costs
Association prepares for its
submission to Wise Persons Committee
Association representatives
meet with provincial securities representatives
Views submitted on uniform securities
laws blueprint
Liberal MP calls for national securities
commission
Association adopts land use strategy
Workshop on landscape
management
Protected area strategies database
to be compiled
e3 Environmental Excellence
in Exploration news
Portability of professional
geoscience credentials
Calgary conference on corporate social
responsibility in Africa
Securities
Committee focuses on regulatory reform
The need to improve Canada’s
securities regulatory system is now firmly on the political agenda,
and there appears to be significant support and momentum for change.
That said, no-one anticipates that change will be easy. There have
been many previous attempts over 70 years to rationalize a system
which is fraught with competing interests, constitutional hurdles,
fragmentation, and regional disparities. The PDAC Securities
Committee, which is now focusing its efforts on representing the
exploration sector in various initiatives underway across the
country, reports the following developments and activities.
Board
approves study on regulatory costs
Recognizing that any debate on
regulatory change is likely to demand examples of regulatory costs
and their impact on the mining and exploration industry, the PDAC
board has approved an in-depth study to determine the costs. The
results of the study will be used to support the various submissions
that the PDAC Securities Committee will be making on regulatory
reform.
Association
prepares for its submission to Wise Persons Committee
The federal government has
established a Wise
Persons’ Committee (WPC) to review the existing regulatory
system and make recommendations for change. The PDAC has until June
30 to put forward its recommendations to the WPC which will
submitting its report to Finance Minister John Manley in the fall.
The PDAC and B.C. & Yukon Chamber of Mines organized a meeting
on May 15 with WPC chairman Michael Phelps to gain some insight into
the methods and deliberations of the committee. Attending the
meeting in Vancouver were Greg Ho Yuen, co-chairman of the
Securities Committee; David Comba, issues director; director Donald
McInnes; and Donald Gordon, executive director of the Canadian
Listed Company Association. The Securities Committee is now
developing the PDAC’s submission which will focus on the junior
exploration sector’s reliance on the markets for working capital
and call for a system that simplifies and harmonizes the current
fragmented system, thereby controlling the escalating regulatory
costs for public companies.
Association
representatives meet with provincial securities representatives
Recommendations for regulatory
change are also being developed at the provincial level. On May 16,
Greg Ho Yuen and David Comba met with Robert Bhatia, deputy minister
of Alberta Revenue and a key player in an inter-provincial committee
on regulatory reform. Later, in Vancouver, they met with
representatives of the B.C. Securities Commission to learn more
about the commission’s proposal for Continuous Market Access.
Views
submitted on uniform securities laws blueprint
At the end of April, the
Securities Committee responded to a blueprint for uniform securities
laws proposed by the Canadian Securities Administrators.
A
copy of this response can be accessed here.
Liberal
MP calls for national securities commission
Members might like to read an
article
by Liberal MP Jim Peterson, former Secretary of State for
International Financial Institutions. In the article, entitled National
Securities Regulator: just do it, Peterson states, “We can no
longer tolerate a system built on competition among provinces that
makes Canada increasingly irrelevant in global capital markets.”
Association
adopts land use strategy
The board of directors has
approved a land use strategy for the association. The development of
the strategy by the Lands Committee is an important step which will
define the association’s work on land access over the next few
years. Click here for a copy. The
committee, chaired by Jamie Robertson, has already begun its work
and reports the following:
Workshop
on landscape management
In an effort to generate a clear definition of
landscape management, the association co-hosted a workshop on the
topic with Wildlife Habitat Canada, the Biodiversity Office of
Environment Canada, and the Alberta Pacific Forestry Company.
Approximately 50 technical specialists from federal and provincial
governments, the conservation community, the forestry industry, the
mining industry, the agricultural sector and aboriginal
representatives attended the workshop to understand landscape
management and its underlying principles, identify barriers to its
implementation and develop an action plan to enable its application
nationally. Industry participants included Jamie Robertson, PDAC
President Bill Mercer, David Comba and Pierre Gratton of the Mining
Association of Canada.
Protected area
strategies database to be compiled
A national database on the current status of
protected area strategies in Canada is currently being developed and
will be completed by the end of June. The database will be available
on the PDAC website and will be updated periodically. For more
information on this database and landscape management, contact
Tony Andrews.
e3
Environmental Excellence in Exploration news
Barry Simmons has been appointed project manager for phase 2 of
e3 Environmental Excellence in Exploration. In his new role, Mr. Simmons
will be concentrating on creating awareness of E3, selling subscriptions
to it and promoting its use worldwide.
With the move from the development of e3 to
marketing and promoting its use, the two committees guiding its
development (steering and technical) have been consolidated into one
committee. Director Greg Isenor is the chairman of this new e3
committee.
As part of the effort to raise awareness about
e3, presentations are being made about the new product. During the
first week of May, Neil Westoll gave talks at the CIM convention in
Montreal and to officials of Natural Resources Canada in Ottawa.
Barry Simmons gave an e3 presentation to federal MPs and senior
bureaucrats in Ottawa on May 21.
Portability
of professional geoscience credentials
The geoscience profession is regulated in most
of Canada, and geoscientists must be licensed in each of the
jurisdictions (11) in which they practise. Many members have
complained about this cumbersome and costly process. There are
mobility and incidental practice agreements in place, and there also
some tentative moves to consider multi-jurisdictional licensing.
Papers on this subject were presented at a workshop during PDAC
Convention 2003 and are now posted on the association’s website.
Click
here to access. For more information, please contact Geoscience
Committee chair Mary-Claire Ward, mcward@wgm.on.ca.
Calgary
conference on corporate social responsibility in Africa
The Canadian Council on Africa and Africa
Direct West is organizing Corporate social responsibility and
business renaissance in Africa, a conference to be held in
Calgary, June 22-23. Click here for full
details.
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