The Yukon’s mining and mineral exploration industry is going to get busy – very busy, says Energy, Mines and Resources Minister Ranj Pillai.
Pillai said in an interview Friday the anticipated upswing is focusing the spotlight on the territory’s capacity to handle it, from housing to the availability of a skilled labour force.
Expenditures on mineral exploration are looking to be noticeably higher this coming season than last year, said the minister. He spoke to the Star after returning from last week’s annual Mineral Exploration Roundup in Vancouver.
He said there are companies which are coming in with significant exploration budgets.
They’re not just budgets of hundreds of thousands to a couple of million, but are budgets in the $5-million to $10-million range, he said.
“What stood out for me was the potential size of the expenditures on exploration, he said.
Pillai noted the development of new mines is already underway, with Victoria Gold beginning to spend millions of dollars to bring its Eagle Gold Project north of Mayo into production.
Then there’s Alexco Resource Corp.’s initiative to restart mining operations in its Keno Hill Silver District, and Goldcorp advancing its Coffee Gold Project, he acknowledged.
Pillai said he thinks the quiet sleeper in all these development projects is BMC Minerals and its Kudz Ze Kayak open pit project southeast of Ross River, which is now before the assessment board for review.
“We are getting into a strong cycle from an economic standpoint,” the minister said. “We are already there.... The economy is going to hop right through the Yukon.”
Pillai said the forecast for a busier time ahead requires attention to detail, including the impact government spending on capital projects will have on the anticipated drain of the workforce.
Drilling companies are concerned about the availability of skilled labour, he said.
Moving into the next phase of the Whistle Bend subdivision development will require an estimated 240 workers alone, Pillai said, but additional housing will be needed.
Developments such as the recently announced Mah’s Point Two condo building on Second Avenue will provide options for families looking to downsize, thus springing loose more housing stock for the market, he pointed out.
Pillai said announcements of similar projects to Mah’s Point are coming down the pipe – soon.
“Housing is a concern, and I have no problem saying that,” he said.
“We need everybody pulling and paddling in the same direction when it comes to housing.”
The minister noted the Kwanlin Dn First Nation has a really strong housing plan.
As well, the Ta’an Kwch’n Council is interested in building more multi-residential apartments, similar to the three it constructed in the Whistle Bend subdivision.
More growth means increased demand on medical services and classrooms – and his cabinet colleagues are well aware of that, Pillai said.
“That is what we think about here, everyday and all night long.”
He said the future looks busy with the projects on the immediate horizon, never mind the potential in the Selwyn Basin along the border of the Yukon and the Northwest Territories, north of the former Cantung tungsten mine.
More than 50 billion pounds of zinc have already been identified in the basin, which remains largely unexplored, Pillai pointed out.
(Zinc was trading this morning for $1.63 US a pound, or the highest in decades but for a brief spike in 2007-08.)
The inventory of copper in the territory, he said, has risen by seven billion pounds in the last decade.
In addition to the exploration and mine development, there’s the Roads to Resources project and the nearly $500 million already committed to improve access for the exploration and mining sector, he said.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau visited Whitehorse in early September 2017 to make the federal funding announcement.
Pillai pointed out the territory has had the lowest unemployment rate in the country for the last six months.
“Our largest concern is capacity,” he said of what he expects the future to bring. “We really have to focus on capacity-building.”
The government, he said, has to figure out how to work with all the partners and players, such as the Centre for Innovation in Mining, to address the anticipated upswing.
Pillai said the mounting interest in the territory is partly due to what industry is seeing as a stronger relationship between his Liberal government and the territory’s First Nations.
When the Liberals were elected in October 2016, the Yukon was coming out of a period of legal challenges and animosity between the former Yukon Party government and First Nations, he said.
Pillai said his government and the First Nations are putting in the work to build their relationship and confidence in the territory.
Representatives of a number of Yukon businesses stopped him at the airport last week to thank him for the new approach, he said.
Pillai said they know strong government-to-government relationships are key to building on the economy, “and they know it was the right thing to do.”