New PDA chief tackles flow-through ,convention

Though he’s only been with the Prospectors and Developers Association a matter of weeks, the Association’s new executive director, Alan Bossin, is quickly learning the ropes.

He’s had to. He came in first of all facing the possibility that federal Finance Minister Michael Wilson might play havoc with flow- through share financing, and with the mining industry. It’s obviously a matter of vital importance to the PDA, and a No 1 priority for the organization to try to ensure that it never happens.

Secondly, the 35-year-old lawyer, who has no background in mining but contends that will be more of a help than a hindrance, has the association’s annual convention coming up in just a few weeks.

The biggest mining gathering of its kind in Canada decidedly can’t be taken lightly and, as Mr Bossin said in an interview with The Northern Miner, “it is taking up a large chunk of my time.”

The flow-through issue, though, (which at press-time was not expected to be dealt with directly in Mr Wilson’s Feb 18 budget) is taking up even more of the new PDA chief’s time, and is to be the sole subject of still another brief to be presented within the next week or so before a Parliamentary committee on tax reform at Ottawa.

Mr Bossin, a former legal counsel with the Insurance Bureau of Canada, where he gained considerable experience in arguing industry interests before government officials, will present the brief along with PDA President Lionel Kilburn, and tax committee chairman Robert Parsons.

The general feeling, he said, is that if the flow-through concept is to be touched at all, it will be dealt with in a tax reform package due to follow the budget.

That had been expected to happen sometime this spring, but Mr Bossin says there are some indications now that it may not show up until about this time next year.

The PDA has been far from idle on the flow-through financing issue, and its steadily-mounting fight to retain flow-through has been duly recorded in the pages of this newspaper. “We have been making a lot of waves, ” the new executive director says, adding he is convinced Mr Wilson has been made well aware of its importance, and of the implications in any changes.

“There’s absolutely no doubt, that … axing of flow-through … would have a devastating effect on the mining industry. Junior companies, particularly, would be literally wiped out, forced to shut down.”

“We can’t believe this would be allowed to happen.”

There will in any case be no let-up in the association’s fight to retain flow-through financing, which last year saw about $600 million in flow-through money raised for exploration, almost double that for the year before, and expected to hit somewhere around the $750 million to $1-billion mark this year.

Its expected for instance that by next year Canada will be able to credit flow-through for some 25 new gold mines in this country.

Mr Bossin hasn’t been with the PDA long enough to grasp all of its elements, but he’s much impressed with the nature and style of the annual convention, even before it happens.

Unlike the association he left, (the Insurance Bureau), he says, the PDA is made up mostly of individual members, some 4,000 of them, and only about 150 corporate members. The individual members, he’s discovered, show a “sheer love” of the industry, and the association, and do an incredible amount of work for the association and the convention, as volunteers. “They work, and they ask nothing. and I think that’s beautiful.” he said.

As for his own lack of mining experience (he holds a Bachelor of Laws degree from the University of Windsor), he points out that he has all kinds of experts to call on, and feels too, he can bring an objective view to any situation, that can be very valuable.

His biggest job at the PDA remains representing the association’s concerns to government. Judging by his experience in his previous job, he has the right stuff to make that work.