The annual Monday Awards Evening is traditionally the highlight of the PDAC mining conference in Toronto, a chance for the great and the good to be recognized and celebrate achievement in what is truly a global industry.
But this year, organizers of the most prestigeous event on the Canadian mining calendar were facing a potentially embarrassing dispute that could not be resolved in spite of a flurry of letters and phone calls that were exchanged between PDAC President Rodney Thomas and three Ontario prospectors.
The dispute involves
Probe Mines Ltd. (TSX: V.PRB, Stock Forum) CEO David Palmer, the winner of this year’s Canadian discovery award and two prospectors who say they too should have been given a share of the award along with Palmer.
On Monday evening, Palmer was scheduled to receive the Bill Dennis Award for prospecting excellence in recognition of his role in the discovery of an Ontario gold find that recently made Probe the target of a $526 million takeover bid from
Goldcorp Inc. (TSX: T.G, Stock Forum)
Bill Dennis is one of the most coveted awards that are available to Canadian prospectors and the ceremony is traditionally a black tie affair, held at the Royal York Hotel.
But when it was revealed that Palmer was the sole recipient of this year's award, the announcement sparked a series of complaints from Mike Tremblay and Jack Robert, the two prospectors who staked the ground on which the gold was found.
That was before they sold it to Probe in 2010 in exchange for $55,000 in cash, 175,000 shares each of Probe and a 2% net smelter return royalty on the property.
In an interview ahead of the awards night ceremony, Tremblay said he is so angry he and his family probably would not attend the event.
“If anyone had thought this out, it would have been fixed a long time ago,’’ he said.
To highlight their concern at being left out, the duo showed up at the PDAC conference wearing white t-shirts with a WE FOUND IT logo written across the front.
While both Tremblay and Robert have no argument with Palmer picking up an award, they believe it should have been shared.
“Both Jacques Robert and I, who discovered this property, promoted it to and eventually sold it to Probe Mines are shocked and dismayed that after 20 years of effort that we’ve invested into this project is not being recognized as well,’’ wrote Robert in a letter to the PDAC dated February 4, 2015.
Robert and Tremblay take the view that the PDAC did not do its research properly.
“All they had to do was go to the Ontario Prospectors Association,’’ he said.
He is referring to the fact that Robert, Tremblay and Palmer shared the OPA’s prospector of the year award for the Probe discovery in 2013.
In a letter to the two prospectors that was obtained by Stockhouse, PDAC President Rodney Thomas said he is aware that the OPA award was shared.
“The OPA award was well deserved; however you were not involved in the project beyond the initial outcrop discovery,’’ he wrote.
“Since then, the project has been advanced considerably to the point of potential economic viability and it is on that basis that the 2015 Award will be awarded to David Palmer,’’ Thomas said.
The PDAC President went on to say that many millions of dollars of risk capital was raised and hundreds of drill holes completed in order to demonstrate the potential economic viability of the deposit.
“To a large degree, the chief proponent and driving force behind this effort is David Palmer and in the Committee’s opinion he deserves much of the credit for getting the project to this stage,’’ Palmer said.
Probe has so far outlined a high grade underground resource of 1.6 million ounces of gold in what is known as the drill indicated category, as well as 400,000 ounces of inferred gold. That does not include an additional 2.32 million ounces of drill indicated gold that may be amenable to open pit mining methods.
Under the deal with Goldcorp, Palmer will become CEO of a spinoff company called Probe Metals, which will have $19 million in the treasury. Goldcorp will hold a 20% stake in that company.
The two prospectors say they believe the deal is worth about $20 million to Palmer.
Stockhouse understands that last minute efforts were made to resolve the dispute before Monday’s ceremony.
But when asked for comment on Monday afternoon, it appeared that PDAC was not about to change its mind. In a text message to Stockhouse, Thomas made the following comment. “Mr. David Palmer has won the Bill Dennis Award for the Border gold mineral discovery.
As a result of his efforts, the project has been advanced considerably to the point of economic viability. As noted in a previous letter, he said it is the opinion of the PDAC Awards Committee’s opinion he deserves much of the credit for getting the project to this stage.