HANSARD

Printed and Published by Nova Scotia Hansard Reporting Services

Mr. John MacDonell (Chairman)

Hon. Barry Barnet

Hon. Karen Casey

Mr. Patrick Dunn

Mr. Sterling Belliveau

Mr. Charles Parker

Mr. Wayne Gaudet

Mr. Leo Glavine

Mr. Harold Theriault

[Mr. Sterling Belliveau was replaced by Mr. Graham Steele.]

In Attendance:

Ms. Charlene Rice

Legislative Committee Clerk

Mining Association of Nova Scotia

Mr. Gordon Dickie

President

Ms. Michelle Landreville

Executive Director

HALIFAX, TUESDAY, APRIL 15, 2008

STANDING COMMITTEE ON RESOURCES

9:00 A.M.

CHAIRMAN

Mr. John MacDonell

MR. CHAIRMAN: Ladies and gentlemen, we're at 9:05 a.m. and our committee has until 11:00 a.m. I want to give the Mining Association of Nova Scotia a gracious welcome, nice to have you, and I don't want to cut short your time.

The general format is, I'll get members to introduce themselves before you start, then the time is yours and we usually do question period after that. Mr. Dickie has indicated that he wouldn't mind if members wanted to interject questions while the presentation is going on, so if anybody gets a burning question they think they may lose before his presentation is over, feel comfortable.

[The committee members introduced themselves.]

MR. CHAIRMAN: For our purposes, we'd like you to introduce yourselves, just for the record please.

MS. MICHELLE LANDREVILLE: I'm Michelle Landreville, Executive Director of the Mining Association of Nova Scotia.

MR. GORDON DICKIE: My name is Gordon Dickie, Past President of the Mining Association. However, what pays the bills through the day is General Manager of Shaw Resources, working out of Shubenacadie.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Okay, start whenever.

MR. DICKIE: Is it acceptable to sort of stand up and be walking around?

MR. CHAIRMAN: The only problem is the mike.

MR. DICKIE: All right. Ordinarily folks don't have trouble hearing me, but I assume you're recording the affair? All right, I've got to tell you that cramps my style. (Laughter)

The other thing I should point out is everybody except the ladies here and the media table are dressed with ties. When I go to talk geology to any group, I never wear a tie or jacket so if you'll forgive me for that. That's why I am somewhat casually attired today.

What we in the mining association, and I guess personally, want to share with the group today is what this business of Nova Scotia geology, Nova Scotia mineral wealth, and uranium exploration and mining is about. So we'd sort of like to work our way through uranium mining and the nuclear fuel cycle in the context of both Nova Scotia and Canada and, to a certain degree, the world in regard to the geology.

Before I start, I would like to try to establish some credibility with the group. I graduated from Dalhousie in 1975 with an honours degree in geology. I was fortunate enough to work the summers of 1972 to 1975 for the Department of Natural Resources. I worked for Shell Canada from 1976 to 1982. I was fortunate enough to be one of the people who was involved in the exploration program that found the East Kemptville Tin Mine in 1977, prior to Shell selling it to Rio Algom in 1982. It's not very often a geologist is lucky enough to be involved in the discovery of a major mineral deposit. I was part of perhaps 20 on the crew that was lucky enough to do that.

Also for Shell, I ran their uranium exploration program in Atlantic Canada from 1979 until 1982. We had projects in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Newfoundland; each summer, we would hire between 50 and 60 university students to work our projects for us. At that time we were spending about $1 million a year, mostly in Nova Scotia. After that, I worked in tin-tungsten exploration for a company called Billiton Exploration Canada in Atlantic Canada, and in about 1986 decided that a career change was appropriate and started to work for the Shaw Group and have been there ever since.

Some of what I'm going to tell you about today, and what I'll show you, is about 26 years old but you know, funny enough, uranium hasn't gone anywhere. However, there have been some changes in the industry in Canada and there have been some changes in the industry around the world. What I would like to do, if you don't mind, is start at the beginning, why it is folks explore for different minerals in Nova Scotia. Let's flip along to a slide or two here as we go along.

The geology of Nova Scotia, in fact, is very similar to - we'll get to this in a minute - western Europe. The mineral deposits that occur here are similar to those in France, the U.K. and, to a certain extent, Spain. What are the common factors? The common factors are granitic intrusions. Mineral deposits tend to require heat in order to form so granitic

intrusions occur at a depth of five or six kilometres, when they occur, and provide the heat source necessary to mobilize various minerals.

I've mentioned the East Kemptville tin deposit - it's associated with a granite in the East Kemptville area. The key there is a very young granite, theoretically speaking. The granite there is about 260 million years old, whereas the South Mountain granite - the large granite batholith on the South Mountain - is about 320 million years old, so there is a long period of granitic intrusion. It tends to be these late-stage granites, the younger ones, that tend to drive some mineral deposits.

So tin seems like a funny thing to have in Nova Scotia, doesn't it? I know that many of you around the table will know that early tin production occurred in the Cornwall area of England. In fact, way before the Romans, the British Isles were known as the Cassiterides - the primary mineral of tin is cassiterite. It also happens that the concentration of tin and copper, the percentage wise in those deposits, happens to be the exact percentage of what's required for bronze. Interestingly enough, 2,000 years or so before the Romans at the Bronze Age, it happens that the copper-tin mineralization in Cornwall, presumably, was accidentally smelted and this wonderful new metal - bronze - was the result.

So 4,000 years ago may sound like a long time. The tin came to be about 240 million years ago, essentially at the start of the age of the dinosaurs. That will give you kind of a feel for the time frame we're talking about.

So what does uranium have to do with tin? Well, a lot of different elements occur together. Typically, if you look at the high-grade zinc-tin mineral veins in the Yarmouth area, you'll have copper, you'll have zinc, you'll have tin. Uranium also tends to occur in or around these younger granites, but perhaps a little further away than the other minerals. In order to have economic concentrations you need some kind of structure, typically, for - the rock needs to be prepared. Nova Scotia has had a long history of structural deformations so there are a lot of fault zones, shear zones, et cetera, in Nova Scotia cutting South Mountain.

In due course, we'll get around to sending a few samples around and you'll see the mineralization in the samples typically as a fracture filling. In other words, the rock was fractured, the mineralization occurred in the space that was provided by the fracturing. So why is any or all of this significant to Nova Scotia? The reason is that when you're exploring for minerals around these granites, you're apt to find anything from what I've already mentioned, including antimony, including a variety of other minerals - kaolin, other "alteration" products - and they go together.

One of the things I'd like for you to remember or take away today is that currently in Nova Scotia we have a moratorium on exploring for uranium, so is that a problem? Well, it's a problem because when you're exploring for uranium or, more importantly, exploring for these other minerals - like tin - you're apt to find uranium and therein lies the problem. The

uranium may not be economic grade, but if it's over 100 parts per million - which is not much above background in Nova Scotia - you have a problem that currently then you would not be able to develop the other deposit if the average concentration is over 100 parts per million. So therein lies the problem.

[9:15 a.m.]

I guess the other problem is and what I would like to try to explain to you today, or at least the view of the industry in Canada, is that uranium exploration and mining in the nuclear fuel cycle is an industry that the hazards are identified, the mitigated measures are understood, and that at least up to the mining stage of uranium - the exploration stage - it's no different than any other exploration activity. One in 100 showings of uranium might require drilling, one in 100 of what you drill might require additional work, and one in 100 of those requiring additional work may result in a mine at some point.

MR. CHAIRMAN: What do you mean by additional work?

MR. DICKIE: Beyond the drilling stage, the next stage of exploration typically is a

bulk sample - you would extract perhaps between one ton and 20,000 tons for mill test work, is typically what you would do. The results of the mill test work would tell you how much of the various minerals you can extract. I'd like to, if I could, start back on the exploration side and attempt to show you a bit about how it works, and then we'll get on to the other parts of the activity here in a bit.

The tools of the trade are pretty simple but the science behind it is well understood. This happens to be the map of southwestern Nova Scotia. In geological terms, the pink areas typically are granitic-type rocks. The other coloured rocks in the margins tend to be metamorphic rocks or older rocks than the granite.

For a geologist, what you do is you look at other parts of the world and you look for similarities. As I mentioned before, in Nova Scotia we looked for similarities, where do other mineral deposits occur in relation to granites, in relation to sediments? If we look at the uranium deposits around Prague in Czechoslovakia, they would typically occur in rocks of this colour, that's the granites. So, lo and behold, in Nova Scotia we have rocks at the right age and we have granites at the right age, so maybe one should look.

Down through the Annapolis Valley there are sandstone sediments in the Valley. If you understand the uranium deposits of southwestern U.S., they occur in sandstones adjacent to sources of uranium mineralization, i.e like the South Mountain. In 1975, Getty Mines started exploring for what you would call roll-front uranium deposits - because of how they form. So Getty Mines was really the first one to start exploring for uranium in 1975. Later work started on the South Mountain.

We have the geology maps and we pick where we want to look, we choose, then what do you do? As a geologist you take your rock hammer; you take your moil, in case in bedrock you happen to see mineralization that you might want to take a small sample of; you take your trusty Brunton compass so that you can do some mapping of the geology; you take a little flagging tape so you know where you're at and where you've been; and nowadays, we have this lovely little tool - a GPS. In my day, we didn't have a GPS. What we had was compass and pace, you had a map, you knew what direction or bearing you were going; basically, orienteering. The significance of all of this is if you don't know where you are and then you find some mineralization, you really don't know where it is so you can't go back to it. What you want to do eventually is produce a three-dimensional map that tells you what you need to know about any mineralization that you find.

In the case of uranium there is an advantage. Uranium itself happens to be radioactive - in other words, it emits primarily gamma radiation. Can I spend a couple of minutes and just tell you a little bit about why that is? Uranium is a heavy element, its most common atomic weight is 238. It has a number of isotopes - in other words, different weights of the atomic nucleus. If you remember, the simplest nucleus is that of hydrogen - it contains one proton, one electron in an outer ring. Helium has essentially two protons and two neutrons which glue the nucleus together.

With hydrogen, occasionally it occurs with a neutron and when that combines with oxygen to form water - typical H₂O - sometimes water contains that hydrogen isotope that makes it heavier. When we come back to the CANDU nuclear reactor, heavy water is significant.

On both ends of the periodic chart, if you remember from Grade 11 or Grade 12 chemistry, you've got hydrogen as the lightest element, uranium is one of the heaviest. Hydrogen is significant because in the CANDU reactor, heavy water is required to moderate the reaction - I'll tell you a bit more about that in a minute.

So going over to uranium, in order to be uranium, it has a specific number of protons; different isotopes have different numbers of neutrons. What happens occasionally in uranium-238 is it will spontaneously decay, if you will. In other words, it would lose a proton or two and would transmute into something else, whether it be thorium or other isotopes, et cetera. As it transmutes, it releases gamma radiation, among other things, so it's a useful property. It's useful because if you have a gamma ray detector and you're looking for uranium, it makes life easier. You have to get close because one of the things that you might remember is that the intensity of gamma radiation, if you're twice as far away, the intensity is one-quarter. Intensity falls off at the square of the distance. So these samples here that have uranium, if I'm sitting where Leo is, walking through the woods, I'm not going to see it because I'm too far away.

That brings me to one point I'd like to make at this stage, that the radiation that's released by this is electromagnetic radiation, it's short wave-length, gamma. It's similar intensity to X-rays. It has been said that there's no "safe" level of radiation. As a matter of fact, I saw that in the paper a couple of days ago, a physician somewhere.

I'll just leave you with this thought, if anybody in this room had X-rays ordered by a physician. The thing about it is, uranium exploration mining and the nuclear fuel cycle, there are labour laws, there are levels of exposure to a variety of things, including radiation, and there is a lengthy history on safe levels. We're all familiar with the Fluorspar Mine in Newfoundland and the radiation deaths in mining there 50 years ago.

So fast-forward to the nuclear industry in Saskatchewan which, by the way, is the world's largest producer of uranium - very high-grade ores and the exposure levels are well monitored, people are rotated in and out of various areas for exposure, depending on, essentially, their annual exposure level. So in terms of the - I've kind of flipped ahead to the mining side, there are documented safe levels of workforce exposure. In terms of the general public, gamma radiation is a significant risk close-up, it's not a significant risk at short distances.

The other kind of radiation that is significant - and I'll just talk about this for a moment because it's used as well in exploration. As uranium decays, one of the products is a helium nucleus or an alpha particle - the same thing - two protons, two neutrons, no electrons - an alpha particle. The issue with radon, radon is a gas, radon emits alpha particles. As a gas, when you breathe radon in, you're exposing your delicate lung tissue to alpha particles. So in our homes, in our basements, radon is a common thing. There's a good thing about radon, though, and this is another concept of half-life, which means how much time is required for half of the radon to disappear, to transmute into the next daughter - it's three days. So that's why ventilation works so well with radon that as you extract it, it transmutes into something else and so you eliminate the issue of breathing radon in and having damage caused by alpha particles.

MR. CHAIRMAN: What does it transmute into?

MR. DICKIE: The next series down - I don't have that right in front of me but we'll provide that sort of decay chain of uranium for you. There are, I don't know, 15 or 20 different ones . . .

MR. CHAIRMAN: Do they decrease in danger or do they . . .

MR. DICKIE: The half-lifes are different. Radon has one of the shortest half-lifes. It will decay into things like potassium thorium that have longer half-lifes. The key, though, with radon, why it needs to be controlled, is that it's a gas and we breathe it in. Alpha particles will not penetrate the skin. When you breathe the radon gas in, then that's when

they can do the damage, so you ventilate. We should ventilate homes; once again, there are safe levels. The problem, however, is that if you aren't aware of where abnormal concentrations of uranium are, then it really is up to the homeowner to provide his or her own protection and provide ventilation in areas of radon.

Groundwater is similar. Harrietsfield a number of years ago, that's a granite area - higher backgrounds in uranium, background values higher than the Canadian drinking water standard. Some may argue that when you set a standard below background - I'll leave it to you to decide how appropriate that is.

So when we come to finding - in this case, this was a rock on the surface, a boulder from a bedrock outcrop. Perhaps we want to do some core drilling of that to see what the geology is there, see what the mineralization is - what's that like? Core drilling or diamond drilling - we're not drilling for diamonds, we're drilling with a drill bit that's diamond-impregnated to cut rock. What we want to do is to collect a core sample of the rock that we're interested in.

There are a number of sizes of core samples that we take. This size is rarely used anymore, it's called AQ. This size is the most commonly used and it's called NQ. This size typically is used where you want to get a larger sample to be able to do some testing on and that's called HQ. So essentially what you have is a hollow stem, you have a diamond-impregnated bit with a hollow core and you drill with water - this slides up inside the drill stem and you recover the core and you can see what your rock is. That's what drilling is about. Then typically in Nova Scotia and in other areas, when the drill is finished on the hole, you would cement the hole back up.

[9:30 a.m.]

So for, let's say, a surface area like this, some folks have thought when drilling into an ore deposit, into a uranium occurrence, what do you do about what comes out of the hole and nothing comes out of the hole of any significant consequence? Typically, as well, when the hole is cemented, then that's done typically to prevent sort of any connection of aquifers, or whatever, in the ground - it essentially replaces the rock core that was taken out.

Up until now the only difference in looking for uranium than anything else has been that we have a tool called a scintillometer that detects gamma radiation and we use that tool to help in the prospecting for that mineral. Also, when holes are drilled, there's a gamma-ray probe. That was in the news the other day - Tripple Uranium, I think, had probed some drill holes and there's - essentially when you do that, you generate a logging of the hole and you see where uranium mineralization is and where it isn't.

So that's the looking for uranium. Other things to look for - and I'll send these rocks around. This one has a fair bit of copper in it - sort of the bronzy-coloured mineral in here -

it has a fair bit of zinc in it and it has some uranium in it - all three together. That one is from, by the way - for those of you from the Valley, you know where Inglisville is - just south of Inglisville Church. That's a pitchblende vein.

A little further down the Valley, where Junior may be familiar with - this is antimony-bearing mineral, it's called stibnite. Once again it's related to these granites. I'll send these around.

This one - not all black minerals are pitchblende. This black mineral is cassiterite, the mineral of tin, and that's an abnormally high, significant concentration. So if you want to send a few of these around while I'm talking.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Can you explain what the process is geologically that produces uranium and that if it didn't complete that process to produce uranium, would it produce something else? Is there a standard something before uranium where it would stop if it didn't complete . . .

MR. DICKIE: Uranium and these other elements that I'm talking about - what happens in these granites, as they cool and solidify over millions of years, heavy elements that won't go into the crystal structure of the granite, they can't go anywhere. What they do is they accumulate along with water, carbon dioxide, hydrofluoric acid - things like that - that don't form the rock-forming mineral. Typically they will rise to sort of the top of the solidifying granites. Sometimes they will escape through fracture zones and shear zones and will escape in non-economic concentrations. That's primarily what happens in geological life.

Occasionally there may be a structure that they can migrate into that then they will form in significant quantity to be poor grade. The Walton Mine, for example - those of you who have been to Walton, the Walton Mine - barite mostly, some zinc and high-grade silver. By the way, before the Hemlo gold was discovered, that was the highest value-per-ton mineral deposit in Canada, up to that point. It's exhausted at the present time - barite is gone, sulphides are gone.

So, John, not always do these different elements occur in the same quantity - if there happened to be more uranium in these resulting fluids, then maybe the concentration of uranium is higher. If there happened to be more copper, happened to be more tin, whatever it was that was in the original rock that was melted to form the granite, will be in the assemblage, so-called.

It's typical as well for - as you move away from the granite in the cooler and cooler zones, oftentimes you may have uranium close to the granite. Next out may be tin, next out may be zinc and perhaps next out may be copper, all within 500 metres, a kilometre or something like that.

The greatest risk, by the way, to people of exploration, geologists and prospectors, is slips and falls. The woods are wet and there are the typical hazards that you would expect from walking over rough terrain, et cetera.

Hopefully that covers off exploration at this point. Are there any other questions on exploration?

HON. KAREN CASEY: Just a question. Do we have any current exploration in our province? Even though there's a moratorium on mining, is there any current exploration?

MR. DICKIE: The moratorium is on uranium exploration mining only. We currently have exploration for gold, other base metals, tin-tungsten, et cetera.

MS. CASEY: No exploration for uranium?

MR. DICKIE: That would be true, there would be little point in spending folks' dollars exploring for uranium when you can't mine it. In fact, the risk is greater if you're exploring for other commodities and there happens to be uranium with it - you're also wasting your money. Therein lies the problem.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Theriault.

MR. HAROLD THERIAULT: Gordon, I see on the map there you had quite a space drawn off. I say that's all uranium east of Digby, right by the Digby Basin, the Annapolis Basin. When was that area explored and how was that found? You have a big dark spot on your map.

MR. DICKIE: Yes, in the presentation we flipped through. Most of those spots were ones that Shell found, so that would have been the exploration that we would have done back in 1979 to 1981. I put them on there because I happened to know where they were and where we found them. There were probably 10 other exploration companies that were also exploring various parts of South Mountain, the Cobequids, et cetera, at the time. The spots I put on were simply occurrence, as we call them - they would be places where you would find something like that.

MR. THERIAULT: So is it a huge deposit there?

MR. DICKIE: It's not a deposit. Essentially, you have the South Mountain granite and the metamorphic rocks adjacent to it and occasionally you will find, let's say, veins or other occurrences of uranium and other minerals. That piece going around from Inglisville, that was a little vein in an outcrop that was maybe as long as here and you can see the width of it and would have extended the depth maybe five or 10 feet - we call that an occurrence. It's an indication that there is mineralization in the right rocks and with further exploration

it may be possible that it may point to a "deposit" somewhere. It, in itself, is not a deposit, it's simply an occurrence. Occurrences are signs of encouragement, if you will, that you're in the right area.

MR. THERIAULT: So the parts per million in that area would be too great for other kinds of mining?

MR. DICKIE: Not necessarily. There are many occurrences that would be higher than 100 parts per million, but the vast majority of the area is probably below that.

MR. THERIAULT: So this 100 parts per million, how far could that be raised so it wouldn't be of any harm? You said that was your major concern of mining in any area because you're running into this and it's stopping you from mining for whatever. So how far could it be raised? Could it be raised double that and still not do any harm, if possible?

MR. DICKIE: I think it could be many times higher than that. If, for example, in your zinc deposit you would have significant quantities of uranium, at the present time it would be known how to handle the uranium even if you weren't "allowed" to mine it. So I think many times and I think it would be site-specific.

MR. THERIAULT: So why couldn't that be negotiated with the government to raise that parts per million so that more mining could occur?

MR. DICKIE: I just offer this as maybe a better approach. Perhaps the best approach is that in our environmental assessment process, if you work up a project to a mine level - let's say as the gold mine in Moose River - the environmental assessment process identifies various elements in the tailings from that and how they're to be handled in the environment. In that particular case, I don't believe uranium is an issue but there are other things that need to be controlled.

What I would say to you is that I don't believe we need a uranium moratorium and I don't think it's appropriate because without a moratorium, we have the process of an environmental assessment to determine how we're going to handle the tailings products from that deposit and also what the concentration may be. There is plenty of opportunity in the process to evaluate the level of risk.

The problem with the moratorium is we don't collect the information. If we don't collect the information then we don't know anything about the risk, do we? So our view is that the moratorium is inappropriate, that the environmental assessment process is very able to deal with whatever by-products of mining there are, uranium included.

MR. THERIAULT: I think that could be a big problem that people don't understand. I think as long as people believe that they're going to glow green if you dig around this rock and you're also saying that there could be homes built on these cores of uranium . . .

MR. DICKIE: Sure, could be, how would we know? Nobody is looking. You're not allowed essentially to look, so why would you waste your money to look? That's the conundrum - for 26 years, we've known that Nova Scotia contains occurrences of uranium. We don't know that there are any "ore bodies" anywhere that would make a mine because the work was on the one particular deposit Aquitaine was working on in Millet Brook. That work, of course, was stopped.

Whether it's economic or not, no one knows. Whether any of these other occurrences may lead to an economic deposit, no one knows. One in a thousand maybe would but we have no information. We've had no new information for 26 years.

MR. THERIAULT: Because you can't explore?

MR. DICKIE: That's right. You spend your day lobster fishing and earn a few dollars - why would you give it to me to look for uranium in Nova Scotia knowing that if I find it, I have to stop what I'm doing? It wouldn't make any sense.

MR. THERIAULT: Thank you.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Glavine, did I hear you right? You would like Mr. Dickie to continue his . . .

MR. LEO GLAVINE: I just wondered if you were going to use this process of some presentation, some questioning.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I just took my lead from Mr. Dickie who said he wouldn't mind if people asked questions.

MR. GLAVINE: We're used to a different format but that's okay, I appreciate that. No, I'm fine, he just answered my question about economic-grade quantities, so thank you.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Parker, did you have a question?

[9:45 a.m.]

MR. CHARLES PARKER: We're into the topic here now on uranium mining and I guess as MLAs we're getting lots of calls, letters and e-mails from the community saying that they don't want uranium mining, they're scared of it. They are certainly not in favour of lifting the moratorium and I guess that's the crux of the issue here. It's mainly because they

are scared of what they hear, what they read, what they see, what the medical community is saying or that there's a half-life out there of several-hundred thousand years on some of these products, so they're naturally concerned about their health, their welfare, their family. We hear stories that the tailings are very difficult to properly dispose of, it can get into the groundwater or it can be there for a long time and if you're too close to it, there could be real problems with the effluent.

My question is, all of the risks that are involved here in exploration, in mining, in the afterlife, is it worth the risk for the perceived benefits that are there? For the economic impact that might be generated from mining, balancing that out with the environment and with people's health, is the risk factor too great to lift that moratorium?

MR. DICKIE: If I could I would like to answer it in two ways, Charlie. The first thing I'd like to point out is that Canada is the world's largest producer of uranium and virtually all of it today is from northern Saskatchewan. The technology is available and the method is available to treat high-grade tailings to manage sites. Post-mining is there, processes to manage the workforce and the health of the workforce is there.

The question of whether we want mining in Nova Scotia of uranium, I think, is up to the proponent who - let's say you find a deposit somewhere that you think is economic. If you can't demonstrate to Nova Scotians through the Department of Environment and their environmental assessment process that you can address not only those concerns you raised, Charlie, but other issues as well, then not only with that uranium mine or that gold mine or that quarry or whatever, then as we know the environmental review process brings to light people's concerns. I guess that's the first part of the answer that on the surface might deal with the safe aspects of it. This is something we do in Canada, we've done for 45 years and it's not rocket science or new science.

The other thing I would offer is that for Nova Scotians, the issue of not knowing where uranium or other commodities may be, for that matter, I would think would be of concern. In Nova Scotia we depend on this industry as an economic driver, so I think if we continue with a uranium moratorium what happens, of course, is that we're in a competitive world and if you've got somebody who has $10 million to spend on exploration somewhere, where would they spend it? Would you come to Nova Scotia where if you're looking for, let's say, tin or tungsten and you're unlucky enough to find over 100 ppm uranium, you have to stop? Or would you spend it in New Brunswick or Niger or Russia or somewhere else? That's the other side of the coin as a competitive advantage.

MR. PARKER: On the safety side, you mentioned northern Saskatchewan. It's very remote country, I'm sure not very heavily populated as compared to Nova Scotia, which is dotted with settlement almost everywhere. Is there a safe minimum distance that uranium mining can take place from a home, from residences?

MR. DICKIE: Let me bring you to an example closer to Nova Scotia. What I didn't mention was back in 1979 to 1981, I had the privilege of visiting many uranium mines in France around the Limoges area and the geology there is similar to Nova Scotia, granites, granite-hosted uranium deposits. As you know, 90 per cent of France's power is generated by nuclear power - they are blessed with significant quantities of uranium mineralization. Toward two underground mines in Limoges, in order to get there we drove through the countryside - farms not unlike the Annapolis Valley - and came upon the first of two sites that day. The mine was just off of the highway and in all directions was farmland and working farms.

I guess that's an indirect way of indicating to you what the French do and how they've managed their industry. It's not northern Saskatchewan, it's sort of in the middle of farmland around what's called the Massif Central in France. Each particular mine and each particular ore body has its own set of criteria that need to be dealt with, and that's done through the environmental assessment process.

MR. PARKER: Thank you.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Steele.

MR. GRAHAM STEELE: I have a bill before the Legislature right now that would legislate the moratorium, because right now it is done by Executive order and it seems to me that it's inappropriate that something like that should be done by Cabinet order - I think it should be the law of the province. So obviously there are some things that we're not going to agree on. However, I think we have a lot more common ground than people might think.

The thing on which we are going to disagree is whether there should be uranium mining in Nova Scotia, because this is the one metal where we cannot ignore what it is used for. It is used for nuclear weapons, it is used for depleted uranium armaments, it is used for nuclear power - which is, at best, controversial - and it is used for medical isotopes.

So let's look at each of those four things. On nuclear bombs, I assume none of us is for that, so we shouldn't do anything in our lives that contributes to the building of nuclear bombs. I think the same argument goes for depleted uranium armaments, which is a new kind of weapon that is widely used on the world's battlefields and I don't see why Nova Scotians should contribute to that.

On nuclear power, reasonable people can disagree. It seems that it's getting more attention these days because it kind of goes without saying that nuclear power doesn't generate greenhouse gases, which is everybody's focus, but it does generate waste that we don't know what to do with. As somebody pointed out on a TV program this weekend, when we consider that the Egyptian pyramids were built 5,000 years ago, we're talking about storing stuff that has a half-life of 10,000 years. Half of it will be gone in 10,000 years and

three-quarters of it will be gone in 20,000 years, and we presume to say that we can build something that will be twice as old as the Egyptian pyramids by the time half of it is gone. So I'll reserve judgment on whether nuclear power is the right way to go, whether, in fact, it's a clean energy.

As far as nuclear isotopes go, or medical isotopes, we're all for that, but let's not ignore the fact that the uranium that's used for medical isotopes, by the way, comes from the United States, it doesn't come from Canada. It's first refined in the U.S. and then further refined at the Chalk River facility that was used a few months ago. The amount of uranium that is used for medical isotopes is the proverbial drop in the bucket - a tiny, tiny fraction of the world's production of uranium. So nobody should be under the illusion that if we don't mine uranium in Nova Scotia that there's not going to be uranium for medical isotopes.

It just seems to me that we can't ignore what this metal is used for. We can't just say, well, we're neutral as to what happens to it once it leaves our province. But here's where we agree, and I think there's a lot of room to do some really constructive work together. As part of my listening and learning about this issue, I've come to understand that the way the moratorium is currently worded in the regulation actually discourages legitimate exploration for and mining of other minerals and metals. You've said that in your presentation today, because the way it's worded is if you're drilling for anything and you find uranium in a certain concentration, you just have to stop, you have to pack up and leave. That's not really conducive to a healthy mining industry.

There is this other issue of radon gas, which is very much in the government's mind. The government recently launched a program for measuring concentrations of radon gas in government buildings. It's important, it's a serious health issue and, of course, radon is a by-product of uranium and if we don't know where the uranium is, that really impairs our ability to know where the radon is, for purposes of planning and zoning to know where our buildings should go.

So here's the question that I have for you, given the fact that you and I can probably agree that we ought to know more about where the uranium is in Nova Scotia, what can we do to map the uranium resource without going the next step of saying necessarily if we know where it is, therefore, it has to be mined?

The challenge, of course, is that all of the exploration right now that companies want to do is being done by junior exploration companies that are out to make some money. They find the resource, then they sell it to a mining company. As you've pointed out, Gordon, you can't really have a resource mapped by people who can't sell what it is that they find. So if you and I can agree that we need to know where the uranium is, without necessarily agreeing on whether it should be mined, how do you think we can go about doing that?

MR. DICKIE: Before I answer that, could I just offer that I think we agree on at least three of the four things that we talked about. As you said, no one in their right mind would agree that uranium should be mined anywhere in the world and utilized to nuclear weapons. I'm guessing that everyone in this room would hold that view, myself included.

I also would believe that we would agree, perhaps, that enriched uranium - really, that's what you're talking about - is produced in the United States and it goes to Chalk River for further processing, if you will, into radioisotopes for medical is presumably an activity that we need to do. By the way, I've been to Chalk River and visited that facility years ago.

In the case of nuclear power, I had the opportunity as well to visit four units in Pickering and also Point Lepreau, when it was under construction in 1980 or 1981. Point Lepreau, as you know - just a few facts on Lepreau if you will, and I'd like to deal with the greenhouse gas thing - Point Lepreau is a 500-megawatt unit; it's equivalent to the four coal-fired units at Lingan. It's been working away there for 26 to 27 years and the coal-fired plant at Lingan will produce anywhere from one million to three million tons a year of CO₂, plus other odds and ends. I don't believe it's one or the other.

I believe that coal, nuclear, wind, other forms of energy, all make up our energy consumption pattern. In fact, we're lucky enough to be on the grid and when Nova Scotia Power runs shy of power, we're able to take advantage of New Brunswickers in the building of Lepreau and utilize nuclear power in Nova Scotia that is produced in New Brunswick. So isn't that great? That's a great thing, we don't need to build a nuclear power plant here - New Brunswickers will and we can use some of the power without any muss or fuss. So we might want to think about that a bit - how responsible is that?

[10:00 a.m.]

The business of storing spent fuel bundles, there are a couple of things I'd like to offer on that. Currently spent fuel bundles from nuclear power generation in Canada are stored at the utilities. The total volume would be something like five hockey rinks, up to the boards is about the volume. There's an incredible amount of energy left in the spent fuel bundles which currently we are not able to refine and process. There's ongoing work on that.

I think we can manage long-term sites that deal with by-products of various operations, including the nuclear industry. There's lot of debate on that, there's lots of work being done, there are lots of opinions. There are opinions of deep storage in rock caverns, salt caverns, et cetera. So at the present time, spent fuel is managed and will be managed and will be processed at some point for the remaining energy that's in it.

That's just sort of another opinion, I guess, on the points that you made.

So coming back to your main question, if Nova Scotians don't want uranium mining, that's what Nova Scotians either want or don't want. I think the decision needs to be made on an informed basis, weighing the various pros and cons. In terms of its impact on other exploration for other activities for other minerals, it's a big handicap. It's a big handicap, as you point out, because we don't collect information. No one is going to go out and collect information on uranium per se, in the private sector, if you can't do anything with it when you find it.

However, I'm putting to you that I think the common ground - if Nova Scotia does not want uranium mining, there needs to be a way to evaluate the risks associated with uranium with any other ore body and how do you deal with that by-product. We know how to deal with that by-product in ordinary tailings, it would presumably be in the normal environmental assessment process and presumably would not negatively impact any other mining activity in this province.

In terms of radon, the thing I think to remember about radon is that uranium is around us all the time and decays into radon around us. There's radon being emitted in this room from the concrete, from the granite basement, from the surroundings. Not always does the presence of radon indicate high levels of uranium. So if you build a house in Nova Scotia, let's say anywhere in the southern part of the province, you may very well have elevated radon concentrations in your basement if you don't ventilate. If you ventilate, you do not have a problem. It's probably one of the easiest-controlled substances that we have, because of the reasons I mentioned - short half-life, easy to detect, easy to ventilate.

So I would put it to you that regardless of what we do on the moratorium, that folks need to be made better aware of the hazards of radon. To be able to map where elevated areas of radon might be, I think is impossible. If you looked at that map of Nova Scotia, anywhere it is pink, you could have elevated levels of radon. So I think it needs to be site-specific and some other program other than exploration. Exploration can help in the data that is generated but I think it needs to be a different program.

MR. STEELE: I could continue but I know that Mr. Glavine has a question.

MR. GLAVINE: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. In terms of - if we take a look at exploration and mining that did get a lot of attention 26 or 27 years ago, Judge McCleave, of course, started a three-phase process and it only got to the first phase because of the enormous outcry against it, overwhelmingly. Have some things changed in the industries since then, in terms of that exploration process but perhaps even more so around mining, that Nova Scotians could have a greater degree of comfort with?

One of the examples that I'm aware of in Canada that didn't have such a great record, of course, was Elliot Lake. I know it was some of the early mining of uranium, but that's a classic case study of so many things that went wrong. Have things changed quite dramatically

- even though we would be doing environmental assessments and monitoring - to say that it could be a different era than 27 years ago?

MR. DICKIE: I had the privilege of going to Elliot Lake 27 years ago to see the reclamation activities that were being done by Denison Mines at the time and Rio, I think it was. That was sort of the last stages of dealing with the tailings area, to do that reclamation and put the systems in place to handle those tailings management areas. Clearly we - some of us in this room anyway - understand the legacy of Elliot Lake, we understand the legacy of the Newfoundland fluorspar mine and so on.

So what has changed? At the time of Elliot Lake, 26 years ago, I was also underground in the Key Lake Mine in Saskatchewan and Cluff Lake, as I recall. What they were doing at the time, in terms of managing their tailings, in terms of managing their workforce, was significantly different from anything that was done in the past at Elliot Lake. They were monitoring with dosimeters what the miners were receiving for a dosage, they were managing their tailings area to handle the waste products from those areas. The chemistry of uranium is well-known, the mitigation measures are fairly easy because it's a relatively easy element to deal with, as are some of the other daughter products and so on that are left behind.

There is no doubt about it, though, I think, that no matter whether it's a uranium mine or a base metal mine or other areas that remain as managed sites, or an oil refinery or whatever, I'm not sitting here today and saying that we're going to build subdivisions on a tailings management area from the East Kemptville mine or the Walton mine or any of these. These are managed sites and have to remain managed sites. They can be managed in a way so that the negative aspects are mitigated to the environment.

MR. GLAVINE: How strongly - you know the conversations now around the moratorium and they have been talked about to some degree by the Minister of Natural Resources - are they being pushed primarily by the price that uranium has now gone to? With a country like China putting about 30 nuclear plants on the drawing board, would it likely go perhaps much higher, or are we in Nova Scotia reaching a point where a moratorium is impacting strongly on other mining possibilities?

MR. DICKIE: I think it's both, Leo. Clearly the price of a pound of uranium, when I was exploring for it versus now, is three times what it was then. So as with all commodities now, generally in all metal commodities the price is up, we've seen what zinc is, we've seen what lead is, we've seen what copper is and yes, these elements are in demand. So that's part of it.

The other part of it is absolutely, in exploring for other metals it's clearly a negative if there is a risk of finding over 100 ppm uranium in Nova Scotia, and there is. So that's a negative in a competitive world of exploration. So yes to both.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I'll ask a question then. I guess I want to be a little more pointed because I didn't really get what I thought was a concise answer to Mr. Steele's question. It would seem to me that it would make some sense that people exploring for uranium - well, it wouldn't make any sense to explore for uranium if you can't mine it, I guess, but if you're exploring for minerals or elements and you discover elements that you can legally mine, that you're held up if you discover uranium, there should be some way to still mine those other elements. I guess that's what I'm looking for - would something like that make sense, that even though you find uranium and there are other elements, that you still should be able to mine the other elements and we should think about some mechanism that would allow the industry to do that?

MR. DICKIE: Yes, John, I think that's one of the points of it. If you're "not allowed" to mine the uranium that goes with, let's say, the tin, then you need to deal with the uranium; the uranium, obviously, would be left behind in the tailings management area, it would be a waste product. Whether the uranium itself would be an economic concentration would be irrelevant in that case, it may only be 110 ppm, in which case it would remain behind under that scenario.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Is the only way to carry out those mining operations of the other minerals to leave exposed uranium in the environment?

MR. DICKIE: It would remain in the tailings.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I could see that as being significantly serious although you mentioned about the parts per million. So the parts per million is a characteristic of that particular deposit of uranium or is it a characteristic of the volume of uranium?

MR. DICKIE: It's a characteristic of the concentration of uranium in the "ore" that you're mining for other purposes.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Okay, so it's volume, really.

MR. DICKIE: It's by mass, essentially, so if you've got 100 parts per million uranium or higher, you can't do anything with the ore body. If it's slightly over 100 parts per million, you mine the tin, 100 parts per million would end up in the tailings area. I guess the other thing to remember is that uranium was in the ore to begin with so then the management of your tailings management area from your tin mine needs to take into account whether that uranium and other metals are leachable and if they are, then what process is put in place to manage that, the same as other mining activities.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you. Mr. Parker.

MR. PARKER: I just have another question. I had the privilege of attending the Mining Matters conference last November, I believe it was. There certainly seemed to be a pretty upbeat mood, there seemed to be a lot of exploration activity in the province from Canadian, American, Australian companies and others looking for all kinds of things from gold and silver to tin, whatever, there seemed to be a high activity of exploration. I wonder if you could just give us a little bit of an overview of the activity in the province for base metals and other resources that are out there from Cape Breton to Yarmouth. What's going on in the province?

[10:15 a.m.]

MR. DICKIE: I can in general, if you beg my forgiveness. I've kind of been out of that specific game for quite a few years but I am aware of a significant amount of gold exploration that's occurring mostly on the Eastern Shore, the slates and quartz sites of the Meguma Group are the host for gold deposits. The most recent announcement of the Moose River Mine is one example. There are a number of other sort of active exploration properties between here and Canso, if you will.

As I understand it, there is base metal exploration - base metals are copper, lead and zinc - activity in Cape Breton, some in the Cobequids. There's a particular geological assemblage of rocks in the Cobequids that stretches from kind of where Karen is from, sort of in the middle of it, both ways as far as Canso and Parrsboro in the other direction. It would include old mining areas like, I suppose, the siderite mines and so on up through that part of the country, East Mines and so on, so there is base metal exploration activity there.

There also happen to be some uranium occurrences in the Cobequids not directly associated with that group. There is some work in southern Nova Scotia, looking for things like tin, tungsten, indium often occurs with these. Indium is a very valuable metal used for gaskets and things like that in high-tech applications. There is also some copper and zinc exploration in the granites, so that's kind of a bit of an overview anyway.

MR. PARKER: Just based on that, I guess I got the impression there was lots of activity going on, lots of exploration and some mines that are certainly opening up. I guess I even heard that it was at the highest level ever perhaps in the province, the amount of exploration that is going on. Is the moratorium therefore influencing the amount of activity going on here? It seems like there's an awful lot of interest, a lot of exploration, mines starting to be open, is the moratorium really having an impact on the industry?

MR. DICKIE: To put it into perspective, I spoke about it being a competitive marketplace or competitive world. We spend about $10 million on exploration in Nova Scotia a year, in Newfoundland they spend $160 million, and in New Brunswick about $60 million a year. In Nova Scotia we spend a sixth of what they're doing in New Brunswick. In

all fairness, half of the exploration in New Brunswick is for gas, so about $30 million for metallic minerals including potash. Is the moratorium affecting exploration in Nova Scotia?

With a lot of the gold exploration it's unlikely there would be 100 ppm uranium associated with any of the gold occurrences in Nova Scotia. So right off the bat, you've got perhaps 35 per cent of the province where it's unlikely that the moratorium would affect it, so it is the remaining that's significant.

MR. PARKER: Thank you.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Steele.

MR. STEELE: I wanted to go back to the question I asked you earlier and explore it a little bit but I also wanted to mention for people's information, Nova Scotia is no longer the only jurisdiction in Canada with a uranium moratorium. Last week the Nunatsiavut Government, the Government of the Labrador Inuit, which is self-governing in some respects, imposed the uranium moratorium which is enforceable there for three years. So that is now the second jurisdiction with a uranium moratorium.

I want to go back to this question of how we deal with this uranium moratorium without unnecessarily discouraging exploration for and mining of other minerals, because here is the problem. First of all, there are a lot of people who believe the moratorium is not working anyway and it's because it's taking quite a while for assay results to come back. Rob Krienke, who is a very likable fellow, the fellow from Capella Resources, explained this to the public meeting in Chester Grant near Millet Brook where the regulation says you have to stop if you hit a certain concentration of uranium.

The fact is it has now taken them three or four or five months to get their drill results back, so they can do a complete exploration program before they get a single test result back. So even though they have hit uranium, they don't officially know it until months later, which makes people believe that something nefarious is going on now. Rob says that's just because there's so much mining exploration activity in Atlantic Canada right now, it's simply taking a lot longer than it used to to get the test results back.

Another challenge is that people don't really trust the Department of Environment. Just a little while ago the Auditor General issued a report on the Enforcement and Compliance division of the Department of Environment that I can only describe as devastating. It is not enforcing the Act, it is not achieving compliance with the environmental regulations.

When you said that people should trust the environmental assessment process as a substitute for the moratorium, that's just not going to fly because people don't trust the environmental assessment process anymore. Even the Digby Neck process, which I believe

was a brilliant historic report with a good conclusion, everybody can agree it took way too long and cost way too much, even though the end result was a good one. I don't think anybody is very anxious to go through that kind of process again, I know Junior isn't. So there's not a lot of public trust in the environmental assessment process, certainly not as a substitute for the moratorium.

Nova Scotia is not northern Saskatchewan - vast, open, largely uninhabited, except for Aboriginal communities, north of Saskatchewan; and it's not Labrador - vast, open, mostly uninhabited spaces, again, except for Aboriginal communities. These uranium deposits are near where we live and so people just don't have the same level of trust, I think. You also raised a question about technical feasibility, about whether it's possible to permit people to explore for other minerals while being safe about the uranium that's left in the tailings. In this total environment, it's not surprising that people are taking entrenched positions that it must be the moratorium or nothing.

I want to go back to what I think is part of the answer here. How do we allow exploration for and mining of other minerals while leaving uranium in the ground? How can we make that happen?

MR. DICKIE: My answer is - I'm guessing that you'll probably disagree with me, but however, I'll try to make my case. First of all, I don't agree that the provincial environmental assessment process is, as you put it, flawed. If there's an issue with "enforcement" or whatever, I really can't speak to that except to say that if it's not being enforced to the degree that Nova Scotians want, do a better job. The tools are there, the tools in the environmental assessment process are there. For the businesses I run - mostly in the aggregate business, the sand and gravel business - I have first-hand knowledge of the environmental assessment process. We have gone through that, we know what enforcement is about, and we know what the process of mitigating environmental concerns are in my business. Quite frankly, I find that the environmental assessment process here is more detailed than in other jurisdictions.

I don't share, necessarily, your view that there's something wrong with the process. We could argue that if there's something wrong with how it's delivered, fix how it is delivered. So as no substitute for a moratorium, I disagree with that. I do believe that in order to solve this conundrum that we have, there would need to be something else in place, perhaps, than the moratorium. Maybe in terms of the environmental assessment process, maybe that's what needs to be amended, looked at in detail, in terms of handling certain concentrations of uranium over and above what we would find acceptable.

So I do believe that the environmental assessment process is the answer for dealing with concentrations of uranium that may affect the approval for other mines. We may need to augment it, we may need to improve its enforcement, I'm not sure, but that would be my answer there.

Also, I can't let those comments pass on Digby Neck. I'm sure there are a lot of people in Nova Scotia who not only disagree with the process but disagree with the outcome. The process, in my view on Digby Neck, is a process that was the wrong tool used to evaluate that particular quarry. We certainly agree that it took too long. We certainly agree that for any company to have spent $4.5 million or $5 million in five years of work on that, that's too long. I would simply point out that I believe it was the wrong process.

The technical feasibility of being able to handle uranium or other heavy metals and tailings is there, it's demonstrated worldwide. We talked about France, we've talked about northern Saskatchewan, we recognized the differences. I think I would put it to you this way, that if there was something peculiar about a particular uranium-containing deposit in Nova Scotia, that could not be dealt with or mitigated for some technical reason, I would think that Nova Scotians would agree that it should not be mined.

However, I would also think that Nova Scotians might like to have that ascertained rather than hands over the eyes - we don't want to see, we don't want to know. So I guess that's the way I would try to answer that, that if we're convinced the current environmental assessment process cannot handle concentrations of uranium in other deposits, let's change that. Let's change how we do these assessments, let's focus on what it is that you and others think would be important and deal with it.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Minister Casey.

MS. CASEY: A question to you, Gordon. You identified some areas in the province where there are current explorations. You also said that some of those are taking place in parts of the province where there's a great likelihood they would not detect uranium, but we don't know that for sure. Of those current explorations, the companies that are currently exploring, is there any information as to how many of them may have discovered uranium and what management techniques they would have used if and when that happened?

MR. DICKIE: In order to explore for any mineral in this province that there is not a moratorium on, you require a licence to do so that is issued by the Department of Natural Resources and you buy that licence, you stake a claim. In order to have and hold that licence, you need to do certain things. If you discover over 100 parts per million of uranium, you're obligated to inform the Department of Natural Resources as a legal obligation to keep that licence in good standing.

[10:30 a.m.]

If you don't, and if you continue to do further work and you have over 100 ppm uranium and you haven't informed the province, at some point the province will know because if you wish to mine whatever might be there and there's over 100 parts per million,

you will not get a licence. So whatever money you've spent, you've wasted. So you should find out early on, by doing analysis, what the uranium concentration is.

I should point out, too, that whether it takes you six months or two months or whatever to find your uranium concentration, the effect is only that whoever is doing the work may be wasting their money. Hopefully I've convinced you that exploring for uranium, including drilling, is no different or no higher risk than anything else. Does that answer your question, Karen?

MS. CASEY: No, because my question was, do we know from the current explorations if some of these companies have detected uranium and if they have, what their management techniques might have been to deal with that?

MR. DICKIE: In order to keep your licence in good standing, you need to report what work you've done to DNR on an annual basis - Natural Resources - in an assessment report. In that report, you'd indicate the work you've done, the various concentrations of metals that you've found and they get those and review those annually, so see whether they're going to renew your licence for another year. So DNR would have that information. I believe it's kept proprietary for - it used to be three years, I'm not sure what it is now, in order to protect the sort of confidentiality of the information. But DNR knows.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Dunn.

MR. PATRICK DUNN: What's the cost of a pound today, approximately?

MR. DICKIE: I'd have to go on the Web site. Quite frankly, I don't know. I don't care, we're not allowed to explore for it. (Laughter) I really don't know whether it's $100 or $70, somewhere in there, maybe.

MR. DUNN: Where are some of the oldest mining exploration sites in Canada? Is northern Saskatchewan one of the oldest for uranium?

MR. DICKIE: I believe the oldest is - whether it's the Chalk River area or Elliot Lake, it may very well be there in Ontario. Saskatchewan deposits were found about 30 years ago, the first ones, maybe 35.

MR. DUNN: What are the studies saying since that time, studies with regard to safety, and the fears people have with regard to it, in these areas that have been around for so long?

MR. DICKIE: The best source of that kind of information that you would be looking for would be the specific operations in Saskatchewan. They would indicate a level of exposures of workforce, what their limits are, what they've achieved, what their tailings

management practices are as part of the environmental assessment. So each one would be different, depending on the mine and the operation.

If you're looking for that kind of detail, then the best thing to do would be to - and we can do that on your behalf if you would like, with maybe a couple of them and get that information. Would you like that?

MR. DUNN: Sure.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Theriault.

MR. THERIAULT: Yes, I guess I asked this question a while ago, Gordon, you know, I was talking about negotiating a new number here for parts per million. We're at 100 parts per million now and you said that's very safe. What is the number we can go and still be very safe? Can you go to 300 parts per million, 500 parts per million?

MR. DICKIE: I'm not so sure. If I could challenge you a bit on the question, the safe or the unsafe part of it . . .

MR. THERIAULT: Where is that borderline?

MR. DICKIE: If you don't have a "deposit" of uranium which is a significant producer of radiation, then the idea of safe in Nova Scotia really doesn't apply because without that ore-grade, mine-grade concentration, safe is not really relevant. So whether it's 100 parts per million or 400 or 1 per cent, it depends on where it is, what the surface exposure is. So it's really site-specific, Junior.

MR. THERIAULT: Well, somebody thought 100 parts per million was safe, so they allowed that. Why can't we have scientific evidence that says 500 parts per million is safe? Someone found the 100 number.

MR. DICKIE: Could I tell you how the 100 came to pass? Ten years after the moratorium, roughly, the Department of Natural Resources decided they would do an economic study to see or determine what the value should be. At that time, in their opinion, they felt that 500 parts per million could be economically viable. In other words, if you've got an ore deposit, 500 ppm, that perhaps it might be economic.

So they said okay, we'll cut that by one-fifth and we'll say 100 parts per million. There's no way that anybody would want to mine 100 parts per million, so that's the level. It had nothing to do with safety, it had nothing to do with anything except a fraction of what they thought at the time might be economically viable. That's how the number came to pass - nothing to do with safety at all.

MR. THERIAULT: Because you're saying that Nova Scotia is only mining one-third of what they could be, or 35 per cent. You're saying that if you could explore more for other minerals, that we could increase the mining by 65 per cent in this province. Is that right?

MR. DICKIE: I didn't say that. What I said was, or what I was trying to say was that the larger the service area you explore, the greater chances are you might find something. In the geology of Nova Scotia - I think I said roughly 30 per cent - it is unlikely you would find uranium over 100 parts per million. The 30 per cent or 40 per cent that's at South Mountain, it's more likely that you would find 100 parts per million or more. The idea is that without a moratorium, you would explore all of Nova Scotia, increasing your chances of finding something. At the present time with the moratorium, you are probably not going to explore in areas where there is a higher probability of finding it and it could be 30 per cent of the province that you might wish to stay away from. Does that clarify a bit what I'm saying?

MR. THERIAULT: Yes, thank you.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Glavine.

MR. GLAVINE: Knowing that on the South Mountain there have been considerable occurrences recorded of uranium, are there any cases where water was tested and degrading uranium was found and, in fact, perhaps safety of the water could be questioned? Are you familiar with anything around that, Gordon?

MR. DICKIE: I'm familiar with it as a tool for exploration in that when I was exploring 27 years ago on the South Mountain, one of the tools I would use would be to collect water samples and analyze them for levels of uranium. Some of my samples may be four or five parts per million, some may be 50, what I'm doing is in those areas that are 50, I'm thinking, okay, maybe I'll take a closer look and I may do some more water sampling around that particular area. Water sampling is a tool by explorationists and that information is provided to Natural Resources through assessment reports. That is another tool that Nova Scotians could use in order to determine these areas of higher background.

MR. GLAVINE: So basically then, you didn't say we would have uranium in some of our water but the likelihood in some of our surface and groundwater could contain degrading uranium to perhaps 100 parts per million or more?

MR. DICKIE: Oh, absolutely.

MR. GLAVINE: You had talked about a program maybe versus exploration to have a greater sense of background radiation, radon and so forth. Could you actually make a case that if the moratorium were lifted and we were doing exploration, you could actually rationalize along health lines - in other words making is safer that we know where deposits are? Is that too far to jump to or, in fact, it could be another tool in giving us a greater sense

of where occurrences and deposits actually are and therefore drilling a well, for example, would not be recommended?

MR. DICKIE: I think you're right, Leo, that information could be incorporated into a more generalized mapping, but I think it still needs to come down to the detail of the homes, of the subdivision, of the wells in that area. It may very well be above background, but we may not really know it because of the regional work that went into producing the map. It's a good start in taking the information we have at DNR in producing generalized maps, but I think there's a scale problem that when it comes to building a house or drilling a well, you want to know what the radon levels are in your basement, you want to know what uranium and other heavy metals are in your water. I think you have to do both.

MR. GLAVINE: Thank you.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Before I ask you to get to the point of wanting to wind up, I have a question. What is considered background radiation, parts per million?

MR. DICKIE: For uranium in water?

MR. CHAIRMAN: Let's just say the environment generally, in homes . . .

MR. DICKIE: For uranium, John?

MR. CHAIRMAN: No, in the environment generally, I'm not talking about a particular deposit. (Interruption) For uranium? Okay.

MR. DICKIE: If I remember back 26 or 27 years ago to the soil sampling that we did, levels of uranium in the soil could be anywhere from two to 75 parts per million anywhere on the flanks of South Mountain. There would be specific areas where it would be significantly higher than that where there was actual uranium mineralization.

You might remember, I think I mentioned this before, water samples collected in Harrietsfield 15 years ago roughly, uranium values there above the Canadian drinking water guideline but was still background. So it varies significantly from geology to geology.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I guess where I'm going is, I'm not getting a really warm feeling about how we determine safe levels. Your explanation to Mr. Theriault about how we came up with 100 parts per million makes me question how do we know or how do we determine any particular level to be a safe level. When you talk about maybe Nova Scotians should ascertain the level of risk, what are we supposed to base that on? Are we supposed to base that on what they do in Saskatchewan? It seems to me that the people are the ones who really, through us, are making a decision about whether or not they want a moratorium. It would seem to me that the industry may not necessarily share that view, from what I'm hearing from

you. I think our role is to really speak for all of the people of the province. How do we ascertain something that to me seems kind of vague?

MR. DICKIE: The problem I think we're having, John, is we're talking about half a dozen different things here. If we look at uranium per se and what the issues are for the average person, the issues are radon particularly and the gamma radiation that is produced by uranium. In the case of radon, I believe you will find that there are prescribed thresholds below which you should maintain radon in the air in your home, for example, so we know what that is. Outside in the environment that's not an issue - the atmosphere looks after the problem.

[10:45 a.m.]

In terms of gamma radiation, that's irrelevant as well generally, unless you're sitting right in the middle of a high-grade uranium deposit because of the distance factor. I would suggest that the "safe" level of gamma radiation is not relevant until you get to the mining stage where you need to protect the workforce. In radon there are safe levels. There are safe levels prescribed in law to protect the workforce mining uranium and it's measured by a dosimeter that each person carries, so it's a direct relationship. For the average Nova Scotian that's not necessary because at least at this point, there are no uranium mines here.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I'm wondering if you would like to sum up, bring you remarks to a conclusion.

MR. DICKIE: I will try. We managed to get one slide out of 15 or so up but you have it to review. (Laughter) Could I leave you with about four points? I'd like to start back on the exploration side. I hope that I'm able to demonstrate that exploring for uranium is no different or more hazardous then exploring for anything else, that the current regulations in Natural Resources cover off those issues.

The second point is that in terms of developing a project to the point at which you may believe you have a mine, I believe that the environmental assessment process - perhaps with some alteration - is sufficient to handle most eventualities that would arise in dealing with commodities other than uranium and uranium. It's up to Nova Scotia whether you want to allow uranium mining or not but I think the environmental assessment process is the best way to handle a mixed ore deposit, with maybe some tweaking.

The third thing I would like to point out is that yes, Nova Scotia is a relatively small place - our population, though, tends to be spread out across the province, concentrated in some areas more than in others. We can demonstrate areas where uranium mining occurs in other parts of the world quite safely and quite environmentally compliant with farming, agriculture and other activities, that we can do. Whether we agree with it or not remains to be seen, but from a technical point of view that can happen.

Fourthly, I think we all agreed that bombs were a bad thing, we didn't need any more. I think we recognize, too, that Canada is a leader in the production of uranium and we depend on nuclear power as part of our energy strategy. We also purchase power from Point Lepreau and certainly some have made the point that Point Lepreau has reduced equivalent CO₂ in its 26 or 27 years by - you can do the math - somewhere in the range of two million or three million tons a year times 26 or 27 years.

Finally, the issue of the storage of spent fuel bundles - I believe it has been pointed out the significant amount of energy that remains in them and the fact that presently they are probably the highest-managed commodity site in the world. We know where they are, we know where the bundles are, they are maintained, and at some point in time they will either be reprocessed or disposed of in appropriate sites.

Finally, as far as the Mining Association of Nova Scotia goes and I guess, personally - I live in Nova Scotia, have grown up here, have deep roots here, raised a family here and I like to make my decisions based as best I can on factual information. In the case of uranium, it's a problem to separate the facts from non-facts because of the issues that we talk about. It is a complicated and complex issue. We go from the mega concern of uranium used in bombs to the very site-specific concern of how we deal with by-products of uranium mining, tailings management areas and so on. With any activity, there are risks with what we do.

From a technical point of view it's up to the mining community, the mining company, in my view, to demonstrate to me as a Nova Scotian and to everybody else here that the environmental issues with their specific site can be mitigated, the same as any other activity. I believe that can be done under an environmental assessment process. By having a moratorium in place we are blind. We are blinded in terms of not being able to acquire information that would be useful for where we build our houses, where we draw our water and what we do.

I don't believe the answer is a permanent, legislated moratorium, I don't believe that's the way to go. I believe the moratorium needs to be replaced by some other process that deals with the concerns that we all have, not just the few around this table.

So if there's one final message I'd like to leave with you, I guess that would be it - that we need to replace the moratorium with some other mechanism that does not prevent us from mining other commodities because there is uranium present.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Well, on behalf of the committee I want to say thank you very much for your presentation. It's been helpful, I think, for us. The committee has a couple of other issues to deal with, so I would appreciate it if you didn't go away. Mr. Steele.

MR. STEELE: Yes, Mr. Chairman, I think it's important that we bring the discussion to a conclusion, so I have the following resolution that I'd like to propose. It has three parts and it reads as follows:

Therefore be it resolved:

That the Standing Committee on Resources express its support for continuing the moratorium on the mining of uranium in Nova Scotia; and

That the committee recognize that the current wording of the uranium section of the Mineral Resources Regulations may have the unintended consequence of discouraging exploration for and mining of other minerals and metals; and

That the committee recommend that the Minister of Natural Resources mandate a thorough, science-based and fully open public process, led by an eminent person independent of the department, to examine possible changes to the uranium section of the Mineral Resources Regulations with respect to removing any unnecessary impediments to exploration for and mining of resources other than uranium, while continuing to promote public safety with respect to uranium and radon.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Okay, I guess resolutions come to a vote. Is there any debate?

Would all those in favour of the motion please say Aye. Contrary minded, Nay.

The motion is carried.

All right, thank you very much.

We have correspondence before you that's dated March 20^th - the memorandum from our clerk. This is regarding a request that came to us from Public Accounts and it was actually a request sent to Public Accounts by the Leader of the Liberal Party, Stephen McNeil. So attached is a response from Nancy Hurlburt, Assistant Commissioner, Coast Guard, Maritimes, and the request had gone out for her to meet with the Committee on Resources regarding the transfer of Canadian Coast Guard ships from Dartmouth to Newfoundland. So I'd like to know just where the committee may want to go with Ms. Hurlburt's response. She has indicated, "We respectfully decline your invitation . . ." Mr. Steele.

MR. STEELE: Thank you. I thought it would be helpful to the committee if I shared my experience from Public Accounts. In Prince Edward Island, the Public Accounts Committee wanted to hear from officials from the federal Department of Agriculture, who declined the invitation to appear. The committee issued a subpoena and it went to court and

the court ruled that the provincial Legislature did have the power to compel the appearance of federal officials.

Here in Nova Scotia, we had an instance a couple of years ago where we wanted to hear officials from the Canada Revenue Agency, who refused. After much back and forth, we did issue subpoenas to them and they did appear. So I say that by way of underlining for the committee that if the committee wishes to pursue it, you do have the unquestioned authority to compel their appearance, even if they don't want to appear voluntarily.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Ms. Casey.

MS. CASEY: If I could just ask a question, and I read through the correspondence back and forth - and I'm asking this because I don't know the answer - what information do we expect, as a committee, we would receive that we currently don't have about the decision to make the move?

MR. CHAIRMAN: Well, I guess the thing I would be curious about - and probably the Liberal Leader would be the better one because it was at his request that we made the request. Certainly it's not all that clear to me as to why they moved the ships from Dartmouth to Newfoundland.

MS. CASEY: So we're looking for more rationale for the decision, is that what we're looking for?

MR. CHAIRMAN: Right, right.

MS. CASEY: Okay.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Glavine.

MR. GLAVINE: I actually - it so happens that I have two people in my riding who work with the Coast Guard and who have sent me a considerable amount of information that, in fact, seems like a stronger rationalization to keep them here in Nova Scotia than to have a new site in Newfoundland.

I don't think we should say this is a dead issue and one that we can't keep on the agenda here. I think when we look at the location, the geography, where they are, it makes so much sense I think economically and their usage, all of those add up to us exploring further, and at least Nova Scotians can say that all of us made the best effort to keep them here, without letting them fly further east.

MR. CHAIRMAN: So I guess my question is more technical than Mr. Steele could help - around the issue of subpoena.

MR. STEELE: I was just going to recommend, Mr. Chairman, that the next step the committee might want to take is to consult with Legislative Counsel, or have you do that, Mr. Chairman, on behalf of the committee. Because of our previous experience with the Canada Revenue Agency, Legislative Counsel knows exactly what to do, how to do it, when to do it, in order to compel the appearance. Then at this committee's next meeting, perhaps Legislative Counsel could report how it's done and at that point the committee would decide to actually go ahead and do it.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Well, I have a suggestion, I would like to give Ms. Hurlburt the opportunity to come and say, the committee has discussed it, we're to the point - well, I don't have agreement from you - but we're to the point to say we have the power of subpoena and we're willing to use it, would you please reconsider and come before the committee? If the committee is in agreement, we can draft that letter and have it go out so that the next time we meet we'll have her response, hopefully, and then we can say she will come or she won't come and then we can go down the road. Mr. Steele.

MR. STEELE: Yes, that, of course, seems quite reasonable. As a word of warning, though, I would say the Public Accounts Committee tried to be very nice to the Canada Revenue Agency and gave them every opportunity to appear voluntarily. If I had to do it all over again, I would have issued the subpoena to them much earlier because that helps to frame the discussion. The more time you give them, the longer it will be before they eventually appear before you.

So although what you're proposing makes eminent sense, don't expect them to change their mind without a legal order in their hand.

[11:00 a.m.]

MR. CHAIRMAN: I hear you. Minister Casey.

MS. CASEY: Not to disagree with what's being said, but I don't see in here the copy of a formal request to have them appear. I see the response to say they've declined the invitation, but I don't see anything addressed to Ms. Hurlburt or to the Coast Guard.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Well, I'm pretty sure we made a formal request or we wouldn't have gotten a response.

MS. CASEY: I guess the reason I'm asking that is regarding the specifics of the request - was it just a general request to come and update - and I don't know that. I just need - I'd be more comfortable knowing what invitation she declined because if we're going to go back and ask the same question or extend the same invitation, I expect we'll get the same answer. That's why I'm wondering what was the specific request.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Well, I see the correspondence is to me so I'll assume she got something from me, if my memory is right. Anyway, if Ms. Rice can get us that.

I guess what I need to know from the committee is, does the committee want us to take the view to write her first, to make the request with the invitation again and the notice that we will use the power of subpoena, and see what the response is first, and then we can have that discussion on May 20^th and make a decision from there.

Certainly for Ms. Casey and anybody else who can't find their correspondence that went out, because I'm sure there was one - my apologies - but anyway, so that the correspondence gets to all members of the committee so they can have a look at that.

All right, I'm just wondering - one other issue that I think members might want to be aware of, we're losing our clerk. She's going on to the Department of Environment and Labour.

MS. CHARLENE RICE (Legislative Committee Clerk): Labour and Workforce Development, actually, the new department.

MR. CHAIRMAN: So anyway, I think we'll wish her well and we'll know that when the minister gets to the House, that his responses are so much improved and the department has been rejigged, we'll know who to blame it on.

MR. STEELE: Can we issue a subpoena to question her about the reasons for her move? (Laughter)

MR. CHAIRMAN: No, I don't think so.

MS. RICE: Thank you, thanks very much.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Is there anything any other members of the committee would like to raise?

MR. GLAVINE: We won't be meeting during the sitting, is that . . .

MR. CHAIRMAN: Well, our next date is May 20^th and that's not etched in stone. The group that's coming before us, which is the Federation of Anglers and Hunters, they haven't been really - there's nothing put together on this so that may be somewhat nebulous, as far as whether or not we'll actually meet on that day. The hope is that we will but stay tuned, I guess. Thank you very much.

[The committee adjourned at 11:03 a.m.]