Association for Mineral Exploration President, Kendra Johnston on BC Exploration Policies

Trevor Hall Hey welcome, everybody, to Mining Stock Daily. This is Trevor Hall. Today, I'm welcoming a new corporate sponsor to Mining Stock Daily. That's the Association of Mineral Exploration, located in beautiful Vancouver, British Columbia. And joining me today is the president and CEO, Kendra Johnston. Kendra has a wide range of experience in mineral exploration before her time here at AME. She was also basically anything from investor relations to a geologist, where she's professionally trained. Kendra, thank you so much for joining us. Glad to have you on the show.

Kendra Johnston Hi, Trevor. Thank you so much for having me. It's a pleasure to be here today.

Trevor Hall Glad we could have you. Let's get right to it. Give our listeners an understanding of what AME is and who your members are.

Kendra Johnston Yes, absolutely. So, AME, as you mentioned, is the Association for Mineral Exploration here in British Columbia. And we represent all of the mineral explorers or anybody related to mineral exploration being service and supply companies or otherwise that are working in B.C. and or based in B.C. and working elsewhere, really around the world. We have a very, very long history. We were actually established in 1912. So, we've been around for quite a while now and been involved certainly in B.C. politics in B.C. exploration projects for a long time.

Trevor Hall Oh, that's great. And I will be honest, even though I live in Colorado, I have been a member of the organization and have also volunteered time on the marketing communications committee, which I'm very proud of. But let's talk about some of the support you give your members. What type of support do you give those junior explorers and who are members of the organization? Is it strictly for companies with projects in British Columbia or do you kind of branch out throughout the world?

Kendra Johnston I know many of our members are branched out throughout the world. We have about 350 corporate members and well over 5000 individual members at this point. So many of those folks are based here in Vancouver or else regionally around the province, from the Golden Triangle, up around Stewart area, all the way out to these Kootenays and everywhere in between. So those members are very typically working in B.C., but many of our members are here and working in Mongolia or Australia or South America or many other places. So a lot of the support that we provide them is more around their corporate headquarters and some of the financial things that they work on. But certainly, we're very much involved well, with the folks that are based in B.C. and working in B.C. on and on the ground experience.

Trevor Hall Can you talk about what are some of the policies that the organization helps out with for companies, say, that are located in Vancouver, which many are obviously located in Vancouver, but also maybe have projects outside of the province or even outside of the country? Why is it important for those companies to also find value in membership with AME?

Kendra Johnston Absolutely. So, the majority of junior explorers really are typically quite small companies in terms of the people that they employ, right. Where we're generally talking maybe one person to maybe 10 people kind of maximum. And those companies have all the same issues as the large companies when it comes to the way in which they're run from being listed on a stock exchange to financing to corporate policies and regulations. So, that's really where we come in and are able to support whenever there are federal or provincial changes to the Corporations Act or the way in which we finance whether it be flow-through or around the mineral exploration tax credit here in Canada. There are different rules and regs that from time to time will change and we're quite active on the advocacy efforts for all of those files as well. So, those might be companies that have different policy issues on the ground from sort of a land access and use or permitting or community relations kind of a place, but their corporate offices that are here and based here very much have the same concerns as everybody else who is based here and working here.

Trevor Hall Now, let's focus really quickly on British Columbia. I know there's obviously a lot of drilling activity that's been done this year. We've reported a lot of the news here on Mining Stock Daily. But in this past year, what are a few of the key policies the Association has been focusing on?

Kendra Johnston The policies actually don't change all that often year to year. We have many policies that are ongoing and or many policy files that are ongoing that we continue to fight for small changes and small improvements on because they're the types of things that will never end. So those are some of the permitting files from a notice of work right through to environmental assessment. And many of our members are at that notice of work stage. So the timeline of how long it takes to get a permit in place and be able to get out on the ground, having the access actually to the land--to be able to get out there, whether that's a resource roads issue and making sure that a road that was initially built for, say, forestry and logging is still in use and still open. And we are able to use it for mineral exploration, which of course, gets us out into the land base that we need to be able to go out and explore at a very grassroots level. Likewise, there's a number of files open at the moment that have to do with species-at-risk and in particular the Caribou file in terms of habitat and grazing areas. And again, going over-- switching over to the how much land are they using and what are the rules and regs around being able to work in care with habitat area, that's just one example. There are many in the species-at-risk area. So there's a number of things that we're really working on the policy side. And at the end of the day, it's really about getting our members out on the ground so that they can have access to the land and explore.

Trevor Hall Is there anything in 2020 next year that may be new in the policy realm that the Association will be focusing on?

Kendra Johnston I think a lot of the land access issues will stay top priority for us. Some of the new and exciting files that are coming on now are coming out of the Mining Jobs Task Force, which was a provincial initiative that was announced last year at our Roundup Conference, actually. Then the Ministry of Energy and Mines and Petroleum Resources here had adopted 24 action items to help expand the exploration and mining industry. So the two or three that pertain to us the most are increasing our financial incentives. So pushing forward our flow-through tax credit shares and our mineral exploration tax credit shares. Looking at a new provincially funded along with the number of partners investment fund that would be focused specifically on the exploration industry. So looking at the viability of that and whether that's something that could actually go forward and how it would move forward, what it would actually look like. And hopefully with any luck putting that into practice as well. And then you might have heard of the B.C. Regional Mining Alliance, is a big file that we're working on as well. Another action item for the Mining Jobs Taskforce, but really out to help promote some of the companies that are working in British Columbia and specifically in this case in the Golden Triangle and really identifying the relationships that they've built with the local First Nations and the security uncertainty that adds to not only working in the province, but working and potentially financing some of those companies as well.

Trevor Hall Yeah, there's a number of topics in there. I know we will probably have follow up conversations about as we continue to move forward. But I do want to spend just a quick minute and a half talking about the Roundup Conference, which takes place there in lovely Vancouver on January 20th through the 23rd. Who will be in attendance and how is this conference different from other conferences happening this winter?

Kendra Johnston So Roundup is very close to my heart. I've actually been a volunteer with the Association for 17 years and I think 15 of those years I was on the Roundup Planning Committee. So it's a piece to me that I really love about the Association in it. It really, at the end of the day, brings together everybody who's working in the industry. And it's really quite a bit different from the conferences that many of your listeners would know about, because it really it brings together the geologists. It's really primarily technically focused. And so it allows for a space for investors to come and speak with the people who are on the ground, who are banging rocks every day, who understand the geology and the deposit models. And if the investors that are at all interested in the actual geology and the mineralization and the relationships between the rocks and the minerals, it's a great place to come and ask those questions and get those things answered for them. We also have a Core Shack, which is the highlight of the conference for many people. We have about 60ish companies that are exhibiting there. They bring the core almost straight from the field. And it's generally speaking, one of the better intercepts that went out in a variety of company’s news releases. So you can actually see the mineralized rock and get an understanding of what you're actually looking to invest in.

Trevor Hall Kendra, I was going to ask you why investors should feel intrigued to attend. But I think you just answered my question already. So thank you so much for your time. And we look forward to catching up with you again in the near future.

Kendra Johnston That's great. Thanks for having me. I look forward to the next one.

Trevor Hall That's Kendra Johnston. She is the CEO of AME. You can visit their website at www.amebc.ca and be sure to check up that Roundup Conference registration page.