Earlier this month, I attended the 74th Annual Energy and Mines Ministers Conference. AME, as part of the Canadian Mineral Industry Federation (CMIF), attends this annual meeting to connect with industry leaders nationwide and ministers and senior officials from Canada’s provinces and territories to present a united front on behalf of Canada’s mineral exploration and mining industry.

The Hon. Jim Carr, Minister of Natural Resources Canada, delivered a keynote speech that contains some very positive content related to mineral exploration and mining: http://bit.ly/JimCarrSpeech2017

This year, CMIF recommended to government actions that will help unlock billions of economic activity across the country, address climate change, bolster reconciliation efforts with Indigenous peoples, and secure Canada as the world’s top supplier of sustainably-sourced minerals and metals in an increasingly lower carbon global economy. You can read the CMIF release here: http://bit.ly/FoundationalPoliciesRelease

Canada’s provincial and territorial energy and mines ministers committed to work together to develop a new Canadian minerals and metals plan; their release is here: http://bit.ly/2017CdnMetalsMIneralsPlan

Overall, I feel very confident that AME’s areas of focus over the next year as guided by our 2013-2018 Strategic Plan will have provincial and federal momentum, given the general movement towards clean tech and innovation enabling a low carbon economy, supplied by our mineral exploration and mining industry. I look forward to working with our Board and members, partner industry organizations and governments to ensure that this collaborative spirit does contribute to the success of BC’s mineral exploration and development industry.