LETTERS TO THE EDITOR — Let’s put Bre-X behind us

Considering that the Busang deposit of Bre-X Minerals is a bust, it is important for investors everywhere to reflect on a number of truths about the Canadian mining industry:

* Mining helped found Canada and still pays a lot of our bills through taxation.

* All mining companies began as juniors, which find mines. How quickly we forget the recent successes of Diamond Fields Resources in Labrador and of Dia Met Minerals in the Northwest Territories. Nor should we forget that real mines are being developed by Canadians in other foreign lands, such as Chile.

* Ordinary investors make money playing junior mining issues; otherwise, how could the industry have operated for this long? (As for Bre-X, you can fool some of the people some of the time . . .)

* Great financial rewards can be obtained by investing in junior mining companies. The price of doing so, however, also carries a high risk.

* Canadian mining is highly regulated by stock exchanges and securities commissions. Checks are made into the backgrounds of directors and officers, and there are strict standards for reporting mineral reserves.

* Most of the people involved in the Canadian mining industry are honest, hard-working and diligent. Many are strictly regulated by professional organizations, such as provincial associations of engineers and geoscientists.

* The Canadian mining industry is not immune to fraudulent actions by skilled and intelligent criminals. Such activity is not common, however, and can usually be guarded against by using established procedures.

As a mining exploration geologist, I am disheartened by the financial losses of so many novice (and senior) investors. The junior exploration business is vital, and, without it, the overall mining industry would soon falter. The solution to the problem of preventing future Bre-Xes lies not in strangling the business with additional regulations but in adhering to the principle of caveat emptor.

Let’s put Bre-X behind us and find some real mines.

Allan Willy, P. Eng., President

Patricia Exploration Services, Toronto