 Welcome back to Investor Intel for one of the most exciting interviews of the year, and I mean that We're lucky today to have Glenn Mullen from PDAC joining us. Glenn. How are you? Very good. Thanks for the opportunity. I Love this time of year. It's the two weeks before PDAC the Mining show also known as Marty Gron Sudbury the greatest show on earth You must be shoulders deep into it right now Yeah, no, I love this time of year too, and I'll take it one step further I look at it like a family barbecue So, you know the family barbecue brings mean uncle Bob So there's the people that you don't want to see but by and large out of the 25,000 or more people that will be there It's just got a buzz and it's fun and PDAC is really all about the networking and it begins early ends late There's lots of diversions and catalysts and really it's just all about networking and business. It's fabulous Now last year one of the big announcements was the continuation of the flow through mining credits Are we expecting to hear anything from the federal government this year? That's always a walk-on eggshells process for the PDAC So at best our intelligence tells us that we could be looking at a renewal Mind you, we've been through this process for I think it's 17 straight years with annual increments never more than a year at a time We've been pushing hard to try to get a three-year renewal So that would allow for better stability financial planning by a lot of our junior members in particular Right now the intelligence is just indicating that we should be having an announcement from Ministry of Finance during the convention No guidance on what that may be. So same as last year walking into it blind. I Just got back from New York where we were doing a round of road shows for cobalt assets in Canada Cobalt in Canada is extremely hot globally right now and PDAC is mentioned everywhere I go about half of the people I met with are coming up for the show Fantastic. Well, there's always a hot commodity. So it's kind of like Mocha Java versus vanilla You pick your flavor sometimes they're very temporal and you know, they don't last sometimes It's the beginning of a cycle that's sustainable with the clean technology and clean tech and the green aspects to a lot of our initiatives and the minerals industry It's probably looking like this is going to be one of the sustainable periods of time where we look at exploration changing focus Kind of like the beginning of uranium back in the 1950s and 60s right that lasted for decades So there's no reason to think that lithium cobalt and some of the rare earths won't enjoy that kind of prosperity right now Do you think uranium is going to have a good year? I? Think we're all looking at uranium and wondering what happened Fukushima seems like an awfully long distant memory and Really, we don't see signs of life there yet But certainly the producers in particular Camico at the lead of the pack have taken all the right initiatives So there's no reason to think that uranium won't come to life as well Now PDAC is what the term we use both for the convention and for the organization sometimes are used them interchangeably So PDAC the organization always has major initiatives on an annual basis. What are we working on this year? Well, it always begins and ends with the convention and certainly it's fair to say that most of our members and probably most of the Attendees are only familiar with the convention and they think that's all PDAC is But yeah, but it's very true And it was true for myself until I got dragged into it about a decade ago and started to see from a different perspective But the PDAC actually has a board of directors of just over 30 Staff of over 26 in the Toronto office and that boosts up or ramps up right around now for the convention planning to nearly a hundred Including the volunteers and the pre convention planning, etc But the big initiatives we've just finished our strategic plan So that was a good opportunity to have the heart-to-hearts with board members with executive committee with the chairs of committees with key staff and What came out of it this time was an affirmation I suppose or reaffirmation of the three biggest priorities from the past decade Aboriginal affairs being one Access to capital being two no money no programs. That's not complicated and access to land So those three were reaffirmed but you on the top five this year would be diversity and innovation So I don't think that's much of a surprise to anybody from any of the other industries in Canada But diversity is more than an obligation. It's become something that we have to confront on the public company side as well So there are lots of new guidelines. Some of them are moving towards regulations We're not quite there yet but we're trying to be in front of that curve and confront diversity and ask the questions before you're asked what you've done about it and on the innovation side again It takes us back to clean tech some of the exploration for newer commodities than the market was accustomed to and in the past and New exploration techniques. So obviously the technical talks That's a big part along with the short courses of the the PAC's draw the programming I was out in the bush in June with the geologist and we were working off notes that were using pace and compass They had not been updated for GPS yet. I was also on a panel in October where they said the two Least innovative industries in Canada were agricultural and mining. Why are we so low to embrace change? I'm not so sure that that's true But often optics lag and that's true in any industry. So whether it's aeronautical or Pharmaceutical or any other kind of health care sometimes the industry's reputation is either a in front or behind of what the reality is And mining I think we're pretty good at finding mines I think we're actually pretty good at using new technology for exploration think back to 30 years ago VLF which was about as basic in exploration technique as ever some guy had figured out that you could use submarine tracking signals for mining Exploration and there we were for ten years running around with VLF's in the bush You know, that's just one small example, but it's never really changed. We're in front. We're not behind But we're not so good at telling our stories So sometimes the optics lag and I think that's the explanation on that one Do you think there's more innovation in exploration than in the actual mail and the processing facilities? No, not so much because I'm mindful of you know I live in Val d'Or, Quebec at the bottom of the road is a company called Agnico Eagle Gold X division I think of some of the experimental stuff that they've done just on that one mine site 400 meters from where I live using Rope cables to reduce the weight on skip cages for instance Figuring out that two-thirds of the weight was related to the cable itself and using that kind of innovation using a rail there for the basic movement of or internally The processing side is actually quite innovative and so is exploration But it really is all motivated by commercial interests And so sometimes that lags in terms of the marketing You don't want to market something that you're not sure will actually be effective And so there is a lag you want to make certain that your new processes are actually effective and cost effective I'm sure I'll be running into at some point over the next two weeks at the show Glenn Looking forward to taking this further Thanks for the warning Peter and I'll be looking out for you the entire time. Take care and all the best Thanks Canada was a huge debt of gratitude to PDAC and the world owes a huge debt of gratitude to Canada The country was built on the backs of miners. We've exported that knowledge and thanks to you for your help in doing that Yep, and hope everybody comes to the PDAC in Toronto. Thanks