Elections Tuesday A poll conducted by Léger Marketing and published on the weekend by Le Journal de Montréal showed the separatist Parti Québécois holding steady in front, with the support of 33 per cent of Quebecers who intend to vote, a slight improvement on a previous survey, while the CAQ trailed with 28 per cent, just ahead of the Liberals with 27, both unchanged from a recent poll. Those numbers appeared to put the PQ within reach of a majority government, if enough local elections break the separatist party’s way.
A separatist party winning is a long way from the PQ getting what they want ( seperation from Canada), but they do have a lot of unfavourable mining ideals. The most dramatic one being to adopt and impose the Australian royalty model on a sector that has 15 viable mining operations versus nearly 900 for Australia.
Bills that have been discussed.
Bill 65 was to block 50 % of the territory north of the 49th parallel ( an area the size of France) from all potential developement. Bill 14 was to give 1,200 municipalities veto power on mining exploration and developement ( imagine that mess of regulation ). Bill 14 has already frozen all claim requests throughout the province since May 13,2011. Bill 27 which dealt with running the plan nord did not pass even with a Liberal majority. Bill 65 comes into effect next spring with strong forestry regulations and so on. Things to pay attention to IMO.
p.s Hopefully low iron prices and the potential of restrictive royalties and higher taxes don`t mess with the feasability studies and Tatas decision too much.
Good Luck