LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Miners need new finds, not task force

Your editorial “Attracting mining’s future leaders” (T.N.M. July 8/91) supports a government-industry program to assess the mining industry’s human resources requirements. Wait a minute. Who’s paying for this? Do we really need to have the federal government pay for a 10-month study of the human resources needs of the Canadian mining industry? The study will cost Canadian taxpayers $200,000 but will probably tell us little more than we already know: — that we need national standards for trade qualifications and apprenticeship programs; — that we need to incorporate advanced technologies into our operations; — that we need to attract and retain a highly skilled and literate workforce; and — that, for the most part, a highly educated workforce exists in Canada but these people are unable to find jobs. I say forget the task force. What this industry needs is access to cheap money to stimulate exploration and create jobs. Just about all junior Canadian exploration companies will tell you that the high cost of capital is the real obstacle to competing with the majors in the high-tech task of finding large-scale, high-grade mineral deposits (which bureaucrats fail to understand is what the industry needs to remain competitive on a global scale). The last thing the industry needs is a study whipped up by a bunch of white-collar workers in air-conditioned offices. It needs more people with dirty fingernails and the smarts to make major mineral discoveries in the northern bush. If we really need a task-force report on the human resources needs of the industry, let the majors (which are relatively lightly taxed) pay for it, not the federal government. Patrick Whiteway Editor Canadian Mining Journal Toronto